#for a song about refugees?? king shit

[thegetdownrebooter]

GRAMMY AWARD WINNER K‘NAAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[litcityblues]

I'll Never Forgive Netflix For This

They canceled Kaos after one season.

Now, to be fair, we had been evaluating the number of streaming services we paid for and were planning on canceling Netflix already, so I can't honestly tell you, dear reader, that our decision to cancel Netflix was solely based on the fact that they canceled Kaos after one season, but it sure as shit didn't convince me to stay.

I get that people have feelings about Joss Whedon these days, but not since Fox canceled Firefly have I been this outraged at a decision to cancel a show. I don't know- as it seems like streaming services cancel shows left and right these days, but man when Hollywood is struggling and the firehouse of streaming content is delivering way more quantity than quality, I don't get how you dump a show this damn good!

It doesn't help that I am a mythology nerd. I devoured old Penguin classics on 'Heroes and Legends of Greek Mythology', and I read The Illiad and The Odyssey (multiple versions, but the Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey is gorgeous-- her translation of The Illiad is on my shelf now) at an absurdly young age. This shit is my jam. I love this. If you are making a movie or a television show about mythology, I'm going to judge the fuck out of it.

(Parenthetical Time: Disney's Hercules is an abomination and I loathe it. Hades was never the bad guy. Troy with Brad Pitt was god-awful, but Troy: Fall of A City on Netflix was an incredibly good adaptation of The Illiad. I know everyone just loves Hercules The Legendary Journeys and Kevin Sorbo these days, but that show also did a really great job with the mythology of it all. Also, shout out to Madeline Miller for The Song of Achilles and Circe, both incredible, amazing books.)

All of that being said: Kaos was the best modern adaptation of Greek mythology that I have ever seen and unforgivably, they ended this show on one hell of a cliffhanger.

The story opens with Zeus (Jeff Goldblum in a bit of serendipitously perfect casting) ruling over a modern Greek world, where mortals are expected to pay frequent homage to him. An Olympia Day monument is vandalized in Krete and he becomes convinced that people are not paying him sufficient respect. He notices a small wrinkle and suspects that's aging (something that shouldn't happen to an immortal) and worries that it represents a line from a prophecy he was given by the Fates.

Dionysus (Nabhaan Rizwan) visits, hoping for more divine responsibilities, and when Zeus rebuffs him and Hera (Janet McTeer) sneers at him, he leaves, but not before stealing Zeus' watch. Zeus goes so far as to summon Prometheus (Stephen Dillane) to seek assurance that his prophecy will not come to pass.

Meanwhile, the mortal Eurydice (Aurora Perrineau) meets Cassandra (Billie Piper) who tells her that today is the day she will leave her husband Orpheus (Killian Scott) because she has fallen out of love with him. She goes to visit her mother, a Tacita Priestess of Hera's (Michelle Greenidge) who reminds her of her prophecy. It's the same as Zeus', which shouldn't be possible, but on her way home, she's hit by a semi and killed. A heartbroken Orpheus tries to commit suicide to follow her to the underworld, but Dionysus tells him there's a way for the two of them to be reunited again.

And from there, this show takes off! We find out about Ari and King Minos, and what happened to her brother Glaucus. The Trojans are here too-- refugees from the fall of their city. Riddy thinks she can pass through The Frame in the underworld, only to find that she can't, because Orpheus stole her coin and she's got to work 200 years before she can pass through and be Renewed. She meets Caeneus who, as it turns out, has the same prophecy as her and Zeus, and little by little, we find out that Prometheus has waited patiently for a chance to take down Zeus and he's not the only one then just when we're setting up for one hell of a cliff hanger with Zeus bleeding, the Meander fountain, the source of the Gods' immortality stops flowing and Hera leaves for an unknown destination, telling one of her children to 'gather the troops' and Ari strikes a deal with the Trojans against the Gods themselves.

And then, Netflix canceled the show.

I cannot tell you how awesome this show turned out to be. Joe McGann shows up as a one-eyed bartender named Polyphemus-- the name of his bar? The Cave. Suzy Eddie Izzard shows up as one of the Fates, Lachesis. Debi Mazar is an excellent Medusa. David Thewlis is Hardes, Cliff Curtis is Poseidon this cast is awesome! From Jeff Goldblum on down it's all just so goddamn amazing. The storylines, adapted from the original myths are updated so intelligently for a modern setting. But it's really the bickering, back-biting, scheming Deities themselves that this show absolutely nails. Hera is mean. Zeus is a tyrant. It's just all so perfect!

Overall: This show deserves at least one more season to finish the story and the internet was rightfully outraged that it was cancelled. As am I. My Grade: **** out of ****

[thunder-the-ranger-wolf]

Canon morphs into AWAU au

This is after the mountain but instead of the Mad Songs he went for Embarrassing songs so several towns have heard all about Geralt eating uncooked rabbit and not knowing what certain words mean but his reputation takes much less of a hit and that actually humanizes him somewhat.

Meanwhile, directly after The Mountain, Geralt is feeling sorry for himself and takes the long way home. People are treating him nicer despite Jaskier not being there.

He comes across a woman looking for her sister. Finds out about the king of Kaedwen. Gathers the Witchers over the winter and by the end of the year they've formed an army with him at the head. (Not by choice either. "You started this. You deal with the headache.")

They conquer Kaedwen like they do in AWAU. They started receiving refugees and are like "Oh shit. We actually have people to protect. This kinda changes things."So everyone has to get real cool about a bunch of things very quickly. New "state" and "county" lines are drawn.

MEANWHILE

Jaskier has been ferreting non-humans from the lands rapidly being conquered by Nilfgard.It lasts for two years. The newly-helmed kingdom gets influxes of refugees along with everything else. This lasts for three years.

At some point, Jaskier is captured as the Sandpiper. The refugees notice something’s up when he's not the one to greet them, and eventually it gets back to the Witchers that their messenger is gone. A patrol is sent to track him down and they find the imprisoned and very tortured Jaskier. They bust him out and take him back to Kaer Morhen.

The whole time he just stuns the patrol with his singing and talking and not being even remotely afraid of them (after a few days of bitterness) and knowing stuff like their signs and how to manage a camp and "yes, Sir Wolf, I know you can consume rabbit raw, but it is *much* better roasted over a spit and seasoned! Give it here!"

And they do not find out that Sandpiper is actually Jaskier until literally the last minute. Like they get to Kaer Morhen at suppertime, everyone is in the Great Hall, the patrol with Sandpiper returns and Geralt and Jaskier just stare at each other.

"Geralt?!"

Geralt rockets out of his chair dragging Ciri along unthinking and Jaskier gets the stuffing squeezed outta him. There are a million things Geralt wants to say, apology among them, but what comes out is

"welcome home, old friend. I'm sorry it took so long to get here."

[howdiditendlor]

THEO APPRECIATION WEEK

day 6 — alternative prompt: aftermath of the dread doctors

“you’re so free,” that’s what everybody’s telling me, yet i feel like i’m an outward-bound, pushed around refugee

— i’m a marionette, ghost

so, i had some trouble with this one. it was the last one i made. i couldn’t figure out how to make a song lyric edit out of interests, so i wrote an alternative prompt. and really i just wanted an opportunity to gush about this song x theo.

like

something’s wrong, got a feeling that i don’t belong

as if i have come from outer space, out of place, like king kong

i wonder if theo ever feels like this. i mean, he obviously feels the first one. that’s not up for debate, i don’t think. but the second one. i wonder if his “not a real werewolf” feelings make him feel like he’s alien. especially because of the way he was made.

and

like a doll, like a puppet with no will at all

and somebody taught me how to talk, how to walk, how to fall

he probably felt like this with the dread doctors. we all know they manipulated him and molded them to their desires.

then

can’t complain, i’ve got no one but myself to blame

something’s happening, i can’t control, lost my hold, it’s insane

this is sooo theo being homeless-core. and just, his whole mentality on not having any friends/being treated like shit/etc

ANYWAY this song . . . so theo. ghost has so many theo bangers. go listen to ghost. this has been a PSA.

[rainofkaiju]

Zone Fighter Thoughts #01: "Destroy the Terror-Beast Missile!"

Hey all, welcome to rainofkaiju! A place where I plan to make semi regular posts of my toy photography, fan fiction and reviews/ musings of kaiju related media.

To start, I decided to make my first entry about an often forgotten about character: Zone Fighter, the Meteor Man.

Debuting in 1973 (after Godzilla Vs Megalon), it was Toho's attempt at capitalizing on the Ultraman phenomenon. Needless to say, it didn't catch on. There's plenty of other places 'round the web that offer more information, so I'll keep the intro short!

Im going to review/ react to each of the 26 episodes of this series. 2023 is his 50th anniversary afterall. And, I've never seen it. Alas, it will be in an order of my own preference, not exactly chronological.

It's an open secret that Toho included a few marquee names alongside the titular hero. Those being Gigan, King Ghidorah and of course, Godzilla! We'll cover the Zone Fighter solo episodes first, then the guest-starring ones last, leaving off on an epic note.

Join me on this journey as we get to witness a forgotten hero in his fansubbed glory, and hopefully convince Toho to bring him back. (Instead of just a Keychain. Lol.)

Let us begin!

We hear Godzilla in the first like 10 seconds! Albeit for the wrong monster... he uses Kong's later.

Awesome theme song, and a great moody score to boot.

An interesting concept of an alien refugee family saving the world in secret.

Some great Kamen Rider esque fight choreography in the human battles. Really digging Hikaru's moves.

This brings us the debut of....

"CANNON TERROR-BEAST" Red Spark!

And, well... meh. Sparkler noodle hands sadly aren't very impressive.

Cool night fight tho.

Zone Fighter himself is pretty neat. Also, a tad creepy with his lit-up eyes in the dark.

But, that's not all! We get the other monster in the episode...

"MAGNETIC TERROR-BEAST" Jikiro!

Now this is a cool kaiju. Unique mecha design, and certainly more memorable than Red Spark. Still doesn't stand a chance against Zone Fighter's Meteor Missiles however.

My fav bit in this entire episode was when Jikiro uses his magnetic pincer to grab hold of a commercial plane. Really good editing, very suspenseful the way the passengers are saved in the last second, as the plane gets yeeted into the night by Zone Fighter.

Never have I seen such a toyetic series shown in such a short amount of time. Jam-packed in 20 minutes. Space stations, spaceships, henshin devices, two kaiju, multiple transforming heroes, a flying fucking car, and the best ever:

ZOBOT!!!

a communicator, drone, weapon, this little guy can do it all. Must've been the coolest shit for kids in the 70's.

All in all, a fantastic start IMHO. One of the most entertaining first episodes from the showa Era of tokusatsu.

Join us next time for Zone Fighter episode 02: " Attack! Destro-King!"

Don't miss it!

[ticktockteapot]

Here's some more random details of my Mad T Party Looking Glass Legends AU that I still don't have the time to draw out but can make lil notes on

- I'm using alot of worldbuilding inspired off of Disney Dreamlight Valley, Disney's Mirrorverse mobile game, a few Greek myths, Centaurworld nowhere king stuff, Hadestown time loop, FNAF Security breach, Tim Burton's Underland universe

-Absolem the Caterpillar (pianist): aka Dadsolem. Chaotic nerd Dad-Friend, Stoner, has seen so much death, would do anything to protect Alice 🦋

-Nivens the White Rabbit(DJ): Looks like he's got his shit together but is actually a nervous wreck. Tech savvy. Dislikes Dinah. Alice sees him as a cool big bro/senpai but he just sees her as an annoying girl that follows him around everywhere 🐇

-Dinah the other White Rabbit/ Alice's pet cat (DJ): Looks like the life of the party but is actually a rule-abiding workaholic. Emotional support mom-friend for Alice and only Alice. The only sane one cuz she was raised to uphold her manners and all that fancy stuff (the complete opposite of Alice), hates Nivens for stealing Alice away from her all the time. Also tech savvy 🐱

-Pawlie Cardganilla OC (choreographer): Jackelope jester from Underland. Card Dancer's manager. Silly goofy guy. Cool Dilf. Has killed people before. Mally's father figure. ♠️🐇

-Alice (singer): peacemaker mom-friend for everyone, training to be a warrior for wonderland, savior complex, writes her own songs, the most unhinged out of everyone when absolutely stressed out 💙

-Tarrant the Mad Hatter(singer): himbo sugardaddy, a level headed leader, battle strategist, supportive of his gf, the most fashionable in the whole band 🎩

Mally the Dormouse (guitarist): main character energy, wants to be a soldier, self-identity crisis, Mally the Martyr ™, would risk it all for Thackery, asshole with a heart of gold 🐁

- Mally is my favorite but he won't be with the band right from the start surprisingly. Bcuz of spoilers. He'll have to suffer first ♥️

-Thackery the March Hare: has killed multiple people but he's still our lovable goofball babygirl, introverted, second in command to Tarrant, has a complicated relationship with Mally/Mallymkun, has a split personality demon named Monarch bcuz spoilers. Got the extra rizz during March season 🐰

- Thackery has a split personality (inspired by irl hares during March season and Storywhisper's Dorchadas) The split personality tied to Thackery in my AU is actually a Pooka from Celtic Irish mythology (a shapeshifting creature, usually takes the form of a hare, black horse, other animals, human with animal features) named Monarch. Their dynamic is along the lines of Eddie and Venom from the comics or Tavros and Rufio from Homestuck or Asa and Yoru from Chainsaw Man or Steven and Marc from Moon Knight

-Chesire Cat (drummer): commits crimes on the daily, mansplain manipulate manslaughter, blackmails everyone when he can, loves cat puns and dirty humor 😼

-Card Guard soldiers (dancers): sibling love hate relationships with eachother, kept in check by Pawlie, the only band member they get along with is Mally bcuz reasons ♥️♦️♣️♠️

-Mary Ann (tech support): Nivens personal assistant in Underland, social media manager for the band, loves photography and likes to share her photos with Niven's ♥️

-Time: everyone either worships him or hates him, he's just trying to do his job tbh, the god of Life/Death in Underland, all-knowing god but he's still a goofy guy, if you want to know more about the looking glass legends then he's your guy lmao⏳

- Disneyland is like a main hub for refugees of fantasy worlds that lost their homes (like Kingdom hearts traverse town and Disney Dreamlight Valley before the Forgetting)

- Yes the Vorpal Sword and the Jabberwock are humanized... sort of...

-Im gonna make SO MANY animatics for this stupid silly Alice in wonderland cringe au just to make younger me happy tbh cringe is dead and I'm the grim fucking reaper

Since I'm digging this fandom up from the grave, would anybody like to hear about my whole Mad T Party/Underland War AU? I'm not really a writer...I'm more of a visual storyteller, and trying to create a cohesive story template is a bitch. So I've got bits and pieces and worldbuilding sprinkled around in my noggin

[world-of-horrors-au]

Horrors AU - HABIT profile

Name: HABIT

Alias: n/a

Faction: HABIT/The Warren

Age: oh god, you don’t want to know

Height: Depends on the vessel

Physical Description: HABIT has no physical form of his own. He hasn’t for a very long time. Instead he possesses humans. His favorite vessel is a dark-haired man called Evan Myers. HABIT has possessed Evan for long enough that he’s changed Evan’s eyes to purple even when he’s no longer possessing him. Evan is the only host that can handle HABIT for long periods of time. Others wear out a lot quicker.

Personality: You’d be hard to find a more rowdy, fun loving demon than HABIT. Unfortunately his idea of fun involves physical, emotional, and mental torture. He enjoys hurting others, he always has. His fuse is short, and his will is strong, much stronger than even the most powerful Horror. It’s how he manages to stay in control of his vessels. HABIT doesn’t listen to orders from anyone, he is his own boss, and he will happily make himself your boss if you’re not careful. His sense of humor, when not fueled by the suffering of others, tends towards sarcasm. His past is a locked box no one will ever get into. His only true good quality is that he’s protective of the things he considers his own… but if he considers you ‘his’, you’re already in too deep.

Backstory: No mortal being knows where HABIT came from, and he’s going to keep it that way. Anyway, HABIT was bodyhopping through the United States when the First Wave hit. It was awesome. Everyone was dying, it was so much fun! Eventually he crossed paths with a young girl with a baseball bat, and for lack of anything better to do, they traveled around together. Then just as he was thinking about ditching the plan to go back to civilization, and taking the kid off to parts unknown, his vessel got axed by a proxy. That sucked. But it led to him discovering Evan, and what a happy discovery it was - for HABIT. Not so much Evan’s wife, friends, and newborn child. With the surviving friend Vinnie in tow, HABIT gathered survivors and followers, a small team designed for fighting others for supplies and territory. Evan hated all of it, it was great! And then Vinnie’s head got blown off in a skirmish. Suddenly, it wasn’t fun anymore. Evan learned to ‘sleep’ after that, ceasing to respond to outside or internal stimulation no matter what HABIT did. HABIT took his people and went north to find a territory for a permanent settlement. Now HABIT lives as a warlord and king, taking care of a growing population of citizens and refugees from the ‘Surviving Shits of America’, fighting against other warlords and generally having the time of his life. He’s gathering the Horrors he can find for his own malicious purposes… He’s heard Jeff Woods is back and has taken an apprentice. Imagine what he could do if he had them on his side...

Skills: If it exists, he probably knows how to do it. Doesn’t mean he’s good at it, though, or likes doing it. Violent things like fighting and torture, he knows basically anything imaginable. Farming and caring for animals other than cats? Not so much. He has some basic leadership skills but the success of his kingdom comes from him knowing how to analyze and choose the right people to do the shit he doesn’t want to. He’s great at analyzing people, and planning - he’s not nearly as reckless as he seems to be.

Weapons: if it exists, and isn’t a nuclear bomb, he knows how to use it. But mostly he uses bladed weapons, like knives, machetes, handheld blades in general. He’s also fond of weapons he can make himself, and he’s made quite a collection of those since taking over Evan.

Other Traits: He fears one person and one person only: the King.

Motifs: rabbits, the color purple, blood. So much blood.

Allies: the various soldiers and the few Horrors that exist in his Warren. Also Vick, his mostly retired second in command

Enemies: basically everyone else

Theme Song: tba

[emblem-fire]

Black Eagle!Dedue AU

Dedue starts classes in the Blue Lions House, but he isn’t totally loyal to Dimitri like he is in the canon. In this AU, he is bitter about the Murder of Duscur and about Dimitri’s refusal to do anything in terms of reparations.

Dedue spends two moons in the blue lions and in that time, he is consistently belittled and degraded by Felix and Ingrid for his heritage. He doesn’t get this treatment from his other classmates but they seldom defend him. This refusal to take action leads to a rift between the Dedue and the rest of his class. For a while, he feels totally alone.

One day, Ingrid gets exceptionally racist in the mess hall and it draws attention. Again, none in the Blue Lions stand up for Dedue but to Dedue’s surprise, quite a few Black Eagles come to his defense immediately. This leads to a spat between the the black eagles, Petra, Dorothea and Ferdinand in particular, and Ingrid and Felix. Seteth breaks up the argument but before they leave, the Black Eagles invite Dedue to their table. Dedue thinks on it a minute before he stands with his food and he goes to join them. He starts sitting with and just generally hanging out with the Eagles from then on, but it doesn’t push him to switch classes.

From then, Dedue builds relationships with most of the Eagles.

Petra becomes friends with him first, and they bond over their mutual feelings of homesickness. They become good friends doing cool friend shit like hunting and fishing together and kicking the shit out of racist monks and students. Idk I just want them to be bros, dude.

Dorothea becomes friends with him by asking him about the arts of Duscur. He’s wary of her initially, but he eventually warms up to her and he even sings the songs he remembers for her.

Ferdinand tries to be a protector to Dedue at first but that annoyed Dedue more than anything. Dedue tries to explain that he doesn’t need a defender and that while he appreciates the thought, he would rather not have Ferdinand stick his neck out like that. Ferdinand obliges, albeit a bit confused as to why someone would refuse a noble’s protection.

 Caspar becomes friends with Dedue because of how built he is. They train together all the time, and though Caspar is a bit too rambunctious for Dedue’s tastes, he indulges him anyways and he develops a friendship with him.

What pushes Dedue to leave the Blue Lions is his paralouge. Dimitri refuses to defend the Duscur rebels. He says that there are more important matters at hand, so he turns his back on the people who just want their homes back. Desperate and enraged, Dedue turns to the eagles and begs them for their aid. Without question, Byleth and Edelgard agree to help him and together, they help the Duscari rebels fend off the battalion of Faerghus soldiers. Afterwards, Edelgard offers the rebels a haven in Enbarr, so that they may live in peace. The rebels accept her offer and they go to Enbarr as temporary refugees, but with plans to take their lands back in one way or another.

Dedue is thoroughly shocked that Edelgard was so ready to aid his people who have been seen as lessers for so long and he’s even more shocked when she offers the people of Duscur her protection and a temporary home in Enbarr. It is here where Edelgard confides in Dedue that when she is Emperor, she wants to create a world of equals in terms of rights and protections. It’s vague but it’s enough for him to turn his back on Dimitri all together and join the Eagles because in this one act of aid, she has done more for Duscur than Dimitri has in his entire life.

Ingrid is predictably vindictive about his choice to leave, but everyone else is amicable about it, ranging from sad to indifferent.

When the war rolls around, Dedue doesn’t think twice about siding with the empire.

Dialogue vs former classmates

Dimitri

Dimitri: Dedue!

Dedue: Your Highness.

Dimitri: I don’t understand, how could you side with her? Can you not see the destruction that she has wrought?

Dedue: With her help, Duscur can reclaim what it has lost. She offers a future for my people, whereas Faerghus sees us as little more than a remnant of the past.

Dimitri: Faithless turncoat! Very well, then. If you fight for her despotic visions, then you’ll die too!

Ingrid

Ingrid: Duscari scum! I will rid you from the world for your treachery!

Dedue: No, Ingrid. You will only die trying.

Felix

Felix: Even if you’ve left the boar, you’re still nothing more than a dog. The only thing that’s changed is your master.

Dedue: I have no words for you.

Felix: Good. Come fight me and die.

Sylvain

Sylvain: So, this new world Edelgard wants to build is one where crests are insignificant?

Dedue: Yes. If you lay down your arms, I can promise you that you’ll have a place in it too.

Sylvain: Tempting, but I’m afraid I’ve already found a cause worth fighting for.

Dedue: Your sense of duty will get you killed.

Sylvain: I have the Lance of Ruin on my side, Dedue. I’ll take my chances.

Annette

Annette: I know I should hate you for siding with her…

Dedue: …

Annette: But, I don’t. I really do understand why you did.

Dedue: We don’t need to fight, Annette. Surrender, and I will see that you are treated with fairness and dignity.

Annette: I’m sorry, but I can’t. I will not lose my father again. Prepare yourself, I won’t go easy on you.

Ashe

Ashe: I was hoping we wouldn’t have to fight.

Dedue: As was I. I don’t suppose I can convince you to lay down your bow and surrender?

Ashe: I’m sorry, but no. I have a duty to fulfill. Even if it means I’ll die fulfilling it.

Mercedes

Mercedes: Oh! It really is lovely to see you again. It’s a shame that it’s like this, isn’t it?

Dedue: I don’t want to fight you, Mercedes. Please, stand down.

Mercedes: If only it were so simple, Dedue.

Endings in Crimson Flower route

Solo Ending

After the war finally came to a halt, the people of Duscur were able to reclaim what they had lost and then some. Dedue was widely celebrated as a hero to his people and he became the first leader of Duscur. The people wanted him to rule as a king, but he proposed a more democratic rule. Even so, Dedue was never voted out of office and under his selfless leadership, Duscur was able to bloom into a wealthy nation with rich art and world famous cuisine.

Ending with Ferdinand

After the war had finally came to a halt, the people of Duscur were finally able to reclaim what they lost and then some. Dedue became a hero to his people and together with the aid of Ferdinand von Aegir, Duscur healed from the scars of it’s past and it blossomed into a vibrant nation which was rich in trade and art. Later, after both Dedue and Ferdinand had passed, letters between the two were discovered, the contents of which were described by poets and scholars as the most beautiful and intimate expressions of love and gratitude to ever be written.

Ending with Petra

After the war had come to a close, Petra was finally crowned as the Queen of Brigid. From the very start of her reign, Petra worked hard to establish strong diplomatic relations with not just Fódlan, but with Dagda, Almyra, Morfis and the newly rebuilt Duscur. Dedue, as the new leader of Duscur, would meet with Petra regularly to make sure that their two nations grew strong together, though later, these meetings would become more private affairs. Eventually, Dedue announced that he would not be running for another term and he left Duscur to be with Petra, to whom he was wed almost as soon as he arrived in Brigid. The people were initially skeptical of him but Dedue’s tireless devotion to his new subjects earned him their love and admiration. To this day, Dedue and Petra are revered in both Duscur and Brigid and the two nations enjoy a high degree of camaraderie.

Ending with Dorothea

When the war finally came to a close, Dorothea accompanied her husband, Dedue to Duscur. Together, they got to work rebuilding Duscur, though in two very different ways. Dedue became the first elected leader of Duscur and his policies made sure that the country was built strongly in terms of infrastructure and with its economy. Dorothea, on the other hand, became a patron of the arts and she oversaw the creation of a new Opera company in Duscur which took in talent from all over the world. This diversity of artists effectively revolutionized art itself, and before long, Duscur was known far and wide for it’s wide array of arts. For as busy as the couple was, however, they always made time for one another and it is said that no union was ever as happy and serene as theirs was.

Ending with Caspar

In recognition of his daring deeds during the war, Caspar was offered the position of Minister of Military Affairs, but he declined. Instead, Caspar accompanied Dedue and his people to help rebuild Duscur. Unfortunately, hatred for Duscur persisted in the north of Fódlan. This led to the creation of a military dedicated to the defense of Duscur, helmed jointly by Caspar and Dedue. Thanks to their tireless efforts, Duscur remained safe and in time, the nation was able to heal and bloom into a wondrous country of wealth and formidable military might. To this day, Dedue and Caspar are remembered as the greatest of all of Duscur’s heroes, even being called the sons of the War God by some.

Ending with Bernadetta

After the war had finally come to a close, Bernadetta was granted the Varley territory, but instead of taking over, she chose a more adept successor and relinquished all claims to the territory. From there, she became a traveling artist of great renown. She ventured far and wide, from Brigid to Sreng to Almyra, but eventually, she found herself in Duscur and she fell in love with the culture. Her paintings of Duscur and it’s denizens became beloved by the people to the point were Dedue, the new leader of Duscur, had to beg her to stay. She inevitably stayed and with her help, art museums were established in Duscur. In time, these became among the finest in the world, filled to the brim with the beautiful works of Duscur’s many artists.

This was pretty cool to write haha. If anyone is interested in me writing more endings for this AU or maybe even Dedue’s supports with the Black Eagles and the Golden Deer let me know!

[starofroselight]

Title: Quackity's Elegy

Summary: Unfinished symphony this, musical aria that. Quackity has a funeral to attend and he needs a suit.

Tags: Introspection, Angst, Swearing, Blood Magic, Funerals, References to Drinking, Implied/Referenced Alcoholism, other implied relationships but there's not shipping unless you really want to read it that way.

AO3 link is in the reblogs since Tumblr is weird about having links in text.

Quackity shouldn't be here.

It's ruins of buildings huddled together like refugees in the streets of L'Manberg. None of the builds on the server have elegance or sophistication to them. Instead, they dare to mirror their creators. They are useful, realistic, basic, and overzealous. They lean and breathe on one another, sagging and smothering. They heave and cough as the hollow earth beneath them shudders.

All of L'Manberg sounds sick.

Is that what happens when a country is built on rotten foundation? Does it seize with sickness, does it fall like shallow breathing? Does it infect every aspect of the ground above until it can swallow it whole?

Fuck politics, Quackity thinks he should go into poetry. He entertains it briefly. Himself with a stupid beret and a feather in his hat, waxing lyrical to whoever would listen. Probably Karl. Even though he’s smiling, he can’t help but turn a nervous face upwards.

Wheezing, shuddering, the purple-tinted tower seems like they’re about to leap to life, bottle in hand, and insult his cardio routine.

Which he took great pride in, by the way.

But no, it's the apartment building Wilbur and Tommy had hidden on top of during the Festival. The one that sheltered their shadows as he pretended not to notice. Of course he saw them. It was impossible not to at the angle he was staring, his shades hiding his pupils trailing their every movement.

He'd expected them to step in when Technoblade was pressured. He'd heard stories of "The Blade", a nickname Tommy gave him. Instead he'd been blown back into the beams of the stage and given a crack in his back that hadn't stopped aching since. Despite orders, he didn't believe Techno would actually hurt a known defector to his side.

Then Quackity had seen his eyes.

He would have shuddered, but there was no one to play the bit off of. No way to make it funny. So he held it inside until he couldn't, or until it would be a wacky one-off.

No, he wasn't scared of Technoblade.

Anyway.

He doesn't have a suit that fits or isn't in tatters from a fucking explosion. No, Quackity lifts the first suit in the bunker he can find.

The bunker was a joke-type deal, the one mentioned only in passing as an extreme situation. It was a narrow section encased in basalt, avoiding the tunnel to Pogtopia.

Now Quackity finds himself wondering why Schlatt didn't go to it. Maybe he was in such a pathetic state he couldn't remember it. The alternative holds more dimensions than he's willing to give the dead president.

Wait, that's both of them.

"It's not looking so for good for Tubbo, is it?"

His voice carries the cadence of a joke, but there's no one to bounce it off of. Instead, it falls flat.

Quackity gets dressed in silence.

Wearing a dead man's clothes to his own funeral. There's an irony there. Or a good song title.

He thinks of how he'd left his guitar behind in Manberg when he'd joined Pogtopia. How he'd assumed it was safe, that the impact of war would hit harder than material positions.

Then Wilbur had it go all to shit and he was out of a musical instrument.

It would be a while before he was going to sing again.

Schlatt's spare suits hang in a row.

Quackity picks up a red tie. It should be enough. It’s Schlatt’s funeral and he feels free. It’s Schlatt’s funeral and he feels sick. Both thoughts can exist at the same time.

Just like how the bunker feels both cramped and empty. Heavy and light. It's a modern miracle that Schlatt can still fuck up atmosphere from beyond the grave.

Quackity hadn't planned on getting drunk before Schlatt's funeral. He didn't even know where the good shit was—but he'd found it in the cabinets of the bunker. He takes two bottles and puts them on the counter.

He'll drink on the way over. Right now, there's more important business he has to attend to sober.

He takes the tie and shifts it in his hands. A personal token, an item favored by the player he wanted to masquerade as. He would have preferred a Schlatt Coin, but he doubted any of those still existed.

Using blood magic while drunk was how lots of idiots wound up a solitary death message and a crater with no explanation. His magic isn’t exactly a server secret. The methods, however, are. He’s smart enough to keep trade secrets to himself; if this world wants his power, they need to reward him first.

Eret had inquired many a time on his exact procedures, but Quackity was swift to turn the conversations to other matters. The King had plenty of matters to attend to besides their favorite pastime. He’s a man of many faces, after all. If it’s a goof, well, who feels threatened at a joke? Mixing jokes with politics and subterfuge was one of his most prized skills.

Meanwhile, BadBoyHalo hadn't been able to shut up about how cool it was. Even parroting imitations of the man's most insufferable quirks back to him weren't enough to discourage him. He'd even offered Quackity a secret in exchange: he wasn't a demon.

Quackity laughed and cursed Bad out with his own tongue.

No, the one person who came the closest to knowing was Sapnap. Sapnap, who stayed around after cabinet meetings to pick up George as the two berated each other. Sapnap, who had a similar craving for blood that he knew all too well. Sapnap, who was a warrior first and as hungry for power and attention as Quackity was.

It was Sapnap to whom Quackity admitted he needed the blood of the player he was going to imitate, and Sapnap who responded by giving him the gruesome fruits of his conflicts—bottles of all kinds of blood. It was Sapnap who promised not to tell, even though they both knew his big mouth would open eventually.

That was before Quackity caught himself. Before he took one good long look pointed out by a man who always smelled of cheap aftershave and booze, who was never right until he was.

Everyone assumed Schlatt was an idiot, and he was. But the bastard was perceptive.

"Sap-Nap? Dream's guard dog? You're gonna tell him all of your secrets?"

Just because Sapnap understood blood didn't make him trustworthy. He was Dream's friend first.

The same with George. George, always tired in the moments of greatest danger. George, whose sleepiness and luck went hand in hand to save him everywhere he went.

Quackity hadn't put the pieces together yet. He was operating as a Vice President with less than a fourth of the information and not a clue what Schlatt kept in his book. However, even he understood that Dream, seemingly unrelated to the entire conflict, was pivotal.

There was another, scarier fact to consider.

He'd been having nightmares.

If someone was in control of the sleeping state of the server, wouldn't it be. . . ?

:)

There's something else in the back of the bunker, underneath a table. Quackity notices it when one of his cuff-links drops to the floor, only to rest against it.

At the moment he didn't care where the book had gone.

It was a case. Initials written on it in Standard Galactic.

∴ ነ

"No fucking way."

Quackity had never learned how to read or write, that was for hardcore mages and they kept their secrets tighter than he kept his ass. But he knew Schlatt could read, and the person who taught him was—

If he had to guess who—

He opened the case.

A guitar.

"Wilbur."

Then it hits: he can sing. He can sing and play and make a mockery of Schlatt's funeral with Wilbur's guitar. He can't think of anything more funny. Quackity did love a good joke.

He's going to make this funeral the biggest joke of them all.

When he's done the Schlatt mask is one of his worst. Even the Dream mask—cracked, flawed, and only let him be a poor imitation of the man himself (or whatever Dream was)—is of better quality than this aberration.

Quackity takes a moment to catch his reflection in the mirror. Schlatt's face is distorted, looking back with Quackity's signature smile adorning it.

He tightened the knot around his neck like he was pulling taunt a noose.

He was going to get white girl wasted.

"Eat your heart out, old man."

He had a funeral to crash.

[original-idiots]

Batfam Social Media: Waynes’ World YT #3

- because of popular demand they finally did a behind the scenes of dance vids Cas and Adri go around the city scouting and taking photographs of locations for the videos and then cut to them creating the choreo (sometimes with Dick or Reina or Steph) and to Adri and Damian composing, recording and mixing the songs to dance to.

- The great Gotham bake off started off as a joke. Dick tweeted he would do anything for a slice of the best chocolate cake. And suddenly the manor, his apartment and his office were receiving package after package, box after box of chocolate cake. Some were pretty good, some were downright horrible, and some were so suspicious Tim took to analyzing all of them for poison or crazy fan dna.

- the winner of best cake though was an ugly ass cake no one even bothered with for days until Jason decided to try it during a tea time video and he literally spaced out so long, Adri worried he was poisoned. Then he proceeded to scarf it down and fight off everyone who tried to steal a piece. Eventually he let them have a taste and it was declared winner. The tea time room though? Totaled.

- Bruce gave them one rule in allowing them all to go to the Gotham ComicCon. They werent allowed to use their suits. So they used each others. Dick went as Robin, pixie boots, scaly panties and all. Cass went as a Signal, Duke went as Spoiler, Steph was Nightwing. Tim deviated by dressing as Alfred (moustache and white hair included). Adri was the Red Hood and Damien would only accept Adri’s Nightingale armor.

-actually he wanted Batman but Jason stole it first. No legit, he stole Bruce’s REAL Batman suit and proceeded to brood and scowl at everything. He even won a contest for best impression but then needed a dozen throat lozenges the day after.

- during the summer of Gotham, everyone took to stripping around the manor. Yes they had centralized cold air but somehow it was still hot and everyone would take off shirts and just wear shorts and sports bras. It didnt really bother anyone except Alfred who conceded when he found the need to take off his own jacket. But then Tim and Adri went for coffee with Babs uptown. And Tim forgot they were in public and took his shirt off.

- the pics went viral for a solid 30 minutes before he took them all down...until Babs started reuploading them again.

- on Barbara’s Birthday she got tremendously wasted. Dick was right there with her, Jason was well on his way and Steph was already singing Kumbaya on the rooftop of the manor with Tim asleep next to her. Adri was holding Kate’s hair back in the bathroom and Damian went out on patrol because they wouldn’t let him drink. Meanwhile Cas and Duke took all the pictures.

- Gotham Nights 2 followed Tim, Dick, Adri and Bruce as they went on nightshifts at work. Jason was Adri’s camera man, and Cas was Dick’s for his a bust in Bludhaven. At Wayne Tower, Tim and Bruce were providing insight and facts about the company and it was going so well until a new intern spoke the forbidden words of the tower. “Sorry Mr. Drake sir, we’re out of coffee” and it all went downhill from there.

- because of how much Alfred was seen prepping snacks and readying coats in the last video, people requested to see a day in the life of the Wayne’s ever reliable butler Alfred Pennyworth. It was all really wholesome, talking about cleaning, cooking and his favorite things, until he showed pictures from when Bruce was young, and from when Thomas Wayne was young and everyone in the comics went batshit over how Alfred didnt ever age in them.

-thus the hashtag #AlfredIsImmortal came to be.

- it was Steph (off duty) who decided she wanted to go “vigilante hunting”. It was Adri, Cass and Duke that gave no arguments. Only, they didnt tell Jason, Dick, Tim or Damian who were on patrol that night what they were doing. Imagine Jason tensed up on his sniper’s nest paranoid that someone could see him, suddenly hearing. “OHMYGOSH GUYS WE CAUGHT THE RED HOOD!”

- The Solheim vlogs became a quick favorite because not only were viewers getting inside the world of the Royal Morgensonne family, Adri had brought over a hundred of the refugees of her country who were staying in Gotham back home for the Midsummer festival.

- but of course, these are the Waynes. Because Bruce gavr the private jet for use of the refugees, they took a commercial flight which got delayed. It was fine until Steph and Tim got bored and found a costume shop.

- when they go to Castle Morgensonne, Dick saw the tallest tower and decided to accept the challenge. What challenge? Exactly. He climbed it then proceeded to dive off it into the loch below. The others followed and the staff were so scared they thought there were ghosts in the tower. Until Adri climbed up there with them and yelled it’s okay. And if the princess approves, why not?

- while some of them went on a traditional Midsummer hunt with Adri and her brother the King, Tim and Duke decided to have a photoshoot in the nightbloom fields east of the castle where the grass and leaves of the wildflowers are such a dark green they almost appear black. They get incredible pics and also get incredibly lost until someone from the hunting party accidentally fires at them with an arrow, thinking they’re game.

- “Yeah, accidentally.”Jason said at the end.

-because they all watched the movie Midsomar together everyone was a little skeptical of all the flower fileds and maypole dancing and singing and Jason and Tim went full crackhead after drinking something they were offered and kept declaring they were ready to join the cult. It turns out it was just crushed beets and they were just being stupid. But Damian wasnt going to tell them that when he offered it to them.

- the Solheim tradition of black items being burned in a central bonfire commenced, Dick drank some of the “crazy juice” and Cass was crowned Mayqueen for being the best dancer.

-Duke was also given a gift because the band heard him singing along and brought him up on the stage.

-when they got back everyone realized Tim had mislabelled the number of at least five prerecorded videos that were posted while they were in Solheim and gave him soooo much shit about it he said fuck it and started numbering them with ridiculous equations, random symbols and letters or, just not at all.

-also when they got back Commisioner Gordon got jacked.

- Dick notices it one night on the roof of the GCPD, Gordon takes off his coat and the sleeves and buttons of his shirt are HANGING ON FOR DEAR LIFE. Batman and the Comissioner are trying to have a serious discussion and Nightwing is poking Gordon’s biceps. “When did you get these?!”

- the next day Dick invaded the GCPD gym with a camera to film him during a workout and LORD. The onlie thirst was real, Barbara found it so funny she made it go viral herself.

____________

Part 1

Part 2

[dinamicus]

The Lord Of The Rings At 15:

The Fellowship Interview Each Other

( fragment)

The Lord Of The Rings At 15: The Fellowship Interview Each Other

I love this idea from Empire :  I wonder if there are other casts of later franchises that could pass this filter to verify the maintenance of respect for each other in some commemorative anniversary

 ok.

Some interesting parts the rest of the interviews here:

Viggo Mortensen (Aragorn)

Questions set by Billy Boyd

Is there a Shakespearian character you would like to play?

I would, at this time in my life, choose either Shylock or Timon. Of the female characters, Margaret of Anjou.

really he makes gender neutral affirmations before this was a tendry..interesting

 If you could speak one other language, what would it be?

Arabic. I speak a little, but would like to be fluent in it because it would allow me to better understand, and more ably try to make myself understood, in countries that have Arabic as their primary language. It would also give me a better chance to do something concrete, in the field, to help refugees in and from the Middle East.

[...]

 If you could live one day over, which would you pick?

I would rather not live any day over again. Things have been, are, and will be just so, and justly so.

If you could own any piece of art, what would it be?

A Poplar-Lined Road At Sunset, France by Minerva Chapman.

Cedar-wood campfire roasted Agria potatoes with aioli sauce on the side.

Is there a scene from Tolkien not in the films that you wish was?

I’d like to have seen what Peter Jackson would have done with the character Ghân-buri-Ghân, the chief of the Drúedain, wild men of the Drúadan Forest. Seeing him lead King Théoden and his army of Rohirrim through the forest to join the fight to save Minas Tirith would have been thrilling. Towards the end of Tolkien’s The Return Of The King, the Forest of Drúadan is given by newly-crowned Aragorn to Ghân and his people for their exclusive use, leaving it to them to decide that from then on if anyone else is to be allowed to enter it. I suppose all of that extra material would have given the already thematically complex and quite lengthy movie far too long a running time and an overwhelming amount of information for viewers to easily assimilate. Die-hard Tolkien aficionados, however, might have enjoyed the character, as he is a one-of-a-kind noble descendant of prehistoric humans.

 If you could eat one thing right now, what would it be?

Cedar-wood campfire roasted Agria potatoes with aioli sauce on the side.

 If you could kiss me again, would you?

I am anxiously counting the interminable minutes that pass until it happens again.

haha :D

. If you could play with one band, who would it be?

I would love to tour with guitarist Buckethead, with the accompaniment, as needed, of high-tide surf in winter, running up and down a gravel beach, the morning tunes of song sparrows, different kinds of rain on a variety of tin roofs, and Johnny Hartman singing Irving Berlin’s They Say It’s Wonderful from the 1963 LP John Coltrane And Johnny Hartman. I’d play piano and maybe sing now and then, or recite poems — and we’d jam together in ancient movie houses and natural outdoor settings, with projected silent movies for inspiration. Movies like Dreyer’s The Passion Of Joan Of Arc, Murnau’s Sunrise, Vidor’s The Crowd, Steiner’s H2O, or Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Akhmed, as well as anonymous family home-movies. Or perhaps simply just you and me, a guitar, a piano, and your lovely voice. And Buckethead ought to come with us — why not?

Sean Bean 

(Boromir)Questions set by Viggo Mortensen

 Is there a scene from LOTR you would want to reshoot?

I wouldn’t mind going back and doing it all again. The first one anyway :)

What character have you most enjoyed playing in the theatre?

Macbeth. The darkness of the story that runs throughout the play always fascinated me. Macbeth is inherently evil and obsessed with power to the point that he is driven insane. I first saw it performed with Ian McKellen and Judi Dench in Wath-upon-Dearne near Rotherham and found it totally enthralling. I suppose it was always an ambition to play the part and I went on to do so in the West End. But basically, I just like evil shit!

 Did you watch the Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy?

Yes, I did and was very impressed. It was so interesting to see characters like Bilbo and Gandalf in their early years. The landscapes and ancient woodland settings jolted my memories of being on the set of Lord Of The Rings. And you in full costume, fishing in a river in the middle of the night like a nutcase.

When were you last in New Zealand?

Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to go back since we finished filming. One conciliation is that my daughter married a Kiwi earlier this year. He has a large family there, so we’ll always have a place to stay when I make the journey back one day.

Which of the books you’ve read this year is your favourite?

My favourite, as usual, is the one I am reading presently. Which is Berlin Noir by Phillip Kerr. I also enjoy reading books by John Pilger and George Orwell.My garden is a mixture of topiaries and evergreens, with areas of wilderness you can get lost in.

 I remember from our time filming the last battle and Boromir’s death scene as reimagined by Peter Jackson for The Fellowship Of The Ring that we spoke about the beautiful native beech forests near Glenorchy on the South Island of New Zealand.

We share an interest in gardening and especially in the planting and care of trees. In the past month I’ve been preparing some new trees that I’ve enjoyed seeing grow up in clay pots since last winter — Basque Country oaks, a silver birch, and a few North American red oaks and sugar maples. They are now ready for transplanting. I like putting trees in the ground, near home as well as in the gardens and fields those of friends if they desire it.

 What is the worst injury you have ever suffered?

I fell through a glass door as a child and almost lost my leg. It was hanging off and took me nearly a year to recover. But I’m alright now, thanks.

Do you believe we humans have free will?

Yes, I believe we have if we allow it to thrive and develop, without the impositions of propaganda and prejudice. Free will can only flourish when we are surrounded by art, literature and music. Not control and oppression

It has been a while since you and I have seen each other — I believe the last time was at the Empire Awards a few years ago — and I miss your company. I cannot for the life of me remember whose turn it is to buy the next round. Do you?

I think it’s yours. Actually, I don’t remember either. I do remember sharing a bottle of whiskey with you, which you took up on to the stage when you won your well-earned award. (After your fine critique of Russell Crowe.) It was a fine night.

ok I really looked for it and it happened. haha. the anecdote is over  here and the video here. I love Russel Crowe but the truth is that he deserved that, it's part of the tendency of Hollywood actors to be pretentious at awards that Viggo hates so much. I love the   anecdote, anyway

[reyxa]

an obligatory zutara teashop au

AO3

title: can’t we just get oolong? author: Reyxa rating: T summary: au where zuko and iroh settle in ba sing se post-banishment. when a pretty water bender start frequenting the jasmine dragon, zuko's world turns upside down.

Chapter 1: Jasmine Tea

“Uncle, get the jasmine leaves from the back!” Zuko calls, writing ‘silent passion tea’ in neat brushed letters beneath the ingredient list.

Iroh huffs, clambering out of the small dusty closet with armfuls of jars. “You know, Prince Zuko, a healthy young man like you should be the one running around. You should help me get off my aging feet.”

Zuko laughs quietly before blowing on the ink to speed its drying. “How many times do I have to tell you, Uncle, I can’t and won’t accept the title of ‘prince’ any time soon.”

“What an easy way to skirt the question of my age.” Iroh winks as she sets the jars on the granite countertops. “What mix have you decided on, Prince Zuko?”

Ignoring the honorific his uncle refuses to drop, Zuko places the name card in its wooden holder and grabs the green tea jar. “Not a good one.”

“‘Green tea, jasmine and vanilla notes’, eh?” Iroh raises an eyebrow, his trademark wide smile taking over his face. “Very romantic.”

Zuko snorts. “There’s customers waiting, Uncle.”

He pretends not to notice the prying look on Iroh’s face as he shuffles from table to table. Romantic. Pfft, as if Zuko could ever know what that will feel like. His best case is taking up a Red Lamp District lover who charges a single silver coin each night.

“Hello, Zuko here.” Zuko never knows what to do with his face when greeting customers. When he first started working at the Jasmine Dragon, he had been a bitter 14 year-old convinced he was wasting his time on trivial things instead of chasing the Avatar. His frustration had driven more than enough customers away. Zuko of the present settles on a warm half-smile, though he wonders vaguely if it comes across as a grimace. “What would you like?”

“Zuko… as in Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation?” the man squints at him, grasping the hilt of his dagger.

He laughs, trying not to let bitterness seep onto his tongue. “I wish. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“Gao, please,” the woman, face pale with cosmetics and eyelids blue as the sky, places a hand on the man’s shoulder. “I’d like a jade springberry tea and he’ll have a black tea with syrup.”

Zuko shrugs, notes down the order, and greets the next table. His smile is marginally less forced when he sees the familiar face of a regular. “Miss Sora, what can I get you?”

Sora groans, wrinkled face offering a dry smile. “It is not what you can get me, dear Zuko, but what I can get you.”

She often spouted nonsense Zuko seldom understood but he was used to it, living with his uncle and all. “I assume it’ll be the regular. Green tea with lemon and a meaningless epiphany.”

“Not meaningless, my dear!” she gestures for him to come closer. He sighs. The more he complies, the faster he can get back behind the counter where he’s most comfortable. She drops her voice as she speaks. “There’s talk along the outskirts of the wall.”

He has to roll his eyes discreetly. He has long given up caring about the outside world. He’s tired of hearing about his sister chasing after the Avatar and his crew from his uncle, he’s tired of hearing about the useless Earth King, and he’s especially tired of hearing about the scores of refugees entering the city. All Zuko wants is to pretend he didn’t exist before the age 16 and try his best to forget the royal blood in his veins.

But he hardly has these luxuries.

“Are you listening, boy?” she shouts in his ear. He cringes but nods regardless. Grabbing his ear, she whispers again. “I have heard there is a girl from the Water Tribe in the inner-city. Looks of marriageable age. I imagine a cabbage cart’s worth of boys will be chasing her tail.”

Shaking his head, he reclaims his ear and stands back up. He taps his foot insistently on the stone floor. What does he care about some washed-up girl from a broken tribe? “Just the green tea, then?”

Sora slams a hand down on the table, her green eyes wide. “Zuko, my boy! Think of the potential! The only Fire Nation boy in all of Ba Sing Se and the only Water Tribe girl for miles!” she presses a hand to her heart. “What a love story to behold.”

He tries his best not to fume but his palms prickle. Why is everyone trying to marry him off? Why does anyone care what happens to him at all? But more than anything, Zuko is worth more than a Water Tribe peasant, regardless of his lost title.

He’s about to blow when his uncle pops out from the counter with a mug filled with well-steeped green tea. “Sora,” Iroh sings, practically oozing charm and charisma. “Have you finally come to accept my marriage proposal?”

Predictably enamored by him, Sora blushes a deep red and fluffs her silver hair. “Oh, you’ll have to bring me more than tea for that, Iroh.”

Zuko stalks off, fingers prickling with the fire he can’t summon.

~

Katara is not enjoying being cooped up in a Ba Sing Se upper-class house with three children and an overbearing chaperone.

She wants to read her scrolls quietly? Nope, Toph is idly bending rocks up into their hardwood floors. A nice hot shower? No! Sokka and Aang used all the hot water to wash the ink off Momo. A stroll down the street? Joo Di must accompany her, of course.

Slipping away was the easy part. The gang had set out into the city earlier that morning to spread word about Appa. Toph and Sokka paired up and went on their way, pasting posters and chatting away. Aang had taken to the skies. And Katara had finally found a peaceful afternoon to herself.

Knowing where to go though, is turning out to be harder than she thought.

She hums old songs as she strolls down cobblestone streets, enjoying the sun and the clamor in the streets. It’s nothing like her close knit village back home. Ba Sing Se is vast and heavily populated. And though Katara’s only ‘allowed’ to roam the wealthy rings of the city, she can’t help but wonder what true hardships still plague the impoverished streets outside the ring.

Itching to learn more and honestly incredibly thirsty after a day in the sun, she ducks into a lavish teashop, already enjoying the cool indoors.

She’s only marginally sweating through her thick cotton clothes as she seats herself in a tucked away booth. No need for Joo Di to catch wind of her out and about. Better to lay low anyway.

“Hello, miss, I— oh!” the aged man exclaims, a grin on his face wider than Katara had thought possible. “I would recognize those beautiful blue eyes and those lovely exotic clothing anywhere.”

“Oh,” Shit. She really didn’t think she could’ve been recognized so easily. “I shouldn’t be here.” she climbs out of the booth. “I wouldn’t want to cause you any trouble.”

“Trouble?” he laughs. “The presence of a Water Tribe native is nothing but a gift, please have a seat.” a wild twinkle in his golden eyes startle her but she takes her seat again slowly. “I think my nephew would suit your… needs far better. Allow me to introduce you.”

What is this guy on about? “No, that’s not necessary, I was just looking for—“

“Zuko!” the man shouts. “Come attend to our guest!”

Katara sinks into her seat. All she was looking for was a simple afternoon finally alone with her thoughts and this commotion is haunting her now. She’s brainstorming how quickly she can leave when he arrives.

“Uncle, you know I was on a break how could you—”

She stares at him. Dark hair, as thick as hers but far more straight, tumbles into a pair of eyes golden like the sun. Honestly, she’s wondering if she’ll be blinded if she stares for too long. Though far more distracting is the deep burn scar across his eye and scraping into the pale skin of his cheek. Her healer’s hands are itching while her heart thrums loudly in her ears.

“Zuko! I think this lovely girl would like some tea. Please serve her.” the man chuckles through his whole body before winking at the two of them individually. He flounces off, leaving them gaping at each other.

“What can I get you?” he sighs, grumbling something under his breath about crazy old people and their meddling ways.

Zuko, the name is vaguely familiar but Katara writes it off, completely distracted. She is struggling to find her voice in her Si Wong desert of a throat. “Just some jasmine tea.” she chokes out, holding onto her necklace for dear life. “With honey.”

He merely grunts and stalks off, not nearly as friendly as his uncle.

She sighs. She has got to stop finding pretty boys at every pit stop. The urge to repeatedly smack her forehead against the table takes over but she’d rather not be concussed when she returns to everyone else. She settles for tugging on her mother’s necklace nervously and endlessly fussing with her hair.

Shouting from the back startles her enough to yank hard on the necklace. Something about marriage and royalty and… flirting? Regardless, it ends with a scarred waiter storming out of the back with several teacups and pots in hand.

Katara sinks back into her booth, chiding herself. She doesn’t have time to care about pretty temperamental teashop boys. She’s in Ba Sing Se to find Appa, convince the Earth King to rally his forces for the invasion, and get out.

“Forgot to ask if you wanted just a cup or a full serving.” the boy’s voice shocks her from her internal scolding. She looks up at him, finding eyes desperately trying not to meet hers and lips pursed. “Uncle said to just bring a full pot for you.”

“Mmm hm,” Words, Katara. Words. “That’s kind of you, thank you.”

His brow seems to soften as he nods. “How hot do you want it?”

The double entendre makes her tug hard enough on her mother’s necklace to break the clasp. She sighs, holding up the torn satin strings. “Oh fuck… um, however it is now should be fine.”

He shakes his head as if to laugh at her, holding the teapot like a turtleduckling. His eyes close, brows drawn together as he concentrates.

Katara squints at him, thoroughly confused until steam rises through the spout of the pot. Her heart stumbles, she isn’t sure if it’s fear or something else entirely. “You’re a firebender,” she whispers, a hand uncorking her water skin.

He offers her a confused look as he pours her tea. “Um… yeah? What did you—“

Her waterbending stance comes maturely as she pops out of the booth, water poised for striking. “He’s a firebender! Everyone get to safety!” she shouts.

The room looks back at her, the same confused look on their faces as the one of her server.

“Why aren’t you leaving?! He’s dangerous!” she throws her water closer to his face. “Who are you?! Are you working for Azula?”

The recognition flickering over his face is enough for her. She drenches him, the force of her bending throwing him against the back wall.

“Stop, stop!” his uncle comes trotting out from the back. “It isn’t what you think, miss!”

“Are you a firebender too?!” she draws her water back, splitting it to hover dangerously close to both the firebenders. “Is this teashop for some sort of front for a Fire Nation military base?”

“How do you know Azula? Did she send you here?” his broadswords seem to materialize from nowhere.

“Me?! Working with Azula? How dare you!” she bends her water into ice shards, flicking them to pin him against the wall. He deflected them and it only makes her angrier. “Tell her her chase for the Avatar ends in Ba Sing Se!”

“Alright, alright, let’s all calm down, hm?” the elderly man skirts around the water she’s wielding, a smile on his face. “My dear, we are only Fire Nation refugees. We came to Ba Sing Se to settle away from the oppression of the Fire Nation.”

The boy snorts, still gripping his broadswords.

“The Fire Nation has taken so much from us.” his face falls, flickers of grief in his eyes. “We mean you and this city no harm at all.”

Katara’s heart softens. The pain written all over the old man’s face guides her to ease her weapons. She knows it well. “The Fire Nation has stolen so much from me. I’ve never heard of or seen peaceful Fire Nation citizens, so I hope you understand why—”

“We’re not citizens.” the other firebender rolls his eyes, drawing back one of his swords. “It’s your turn to explain, waterbender. How do you know Azula?”

She glares at him, poised to whip her water out once again. “I don’t owe you any explanation. In fact, I think we should all pretend I was never here to begin with.”

Katara backs towards the door, eyes flickering between the old man and the firebender. Her tongue mourns the untouched tea left on the table but she turns on her heel, a hand on the door.

A sword beneath her chin steals her breath. When the boy speaks, she can feel his breath in her hair. “Let me rephrase. My name is Prince Zuko of the Fire Nation and if my sister is in the city, I need to know.”

“Zuko!” his uncle hisses. “Let the poor girl go! We have nothing to do with the royal family anymore.”

“If she’s here, it’s only a matter of time before she comes for us too!” his voice is strained in his throat. “Tell us, waterbender.”

Katara laughs bitterly. “So not only are you a firebender, you’re literally the heir of the man causing mass genocide across the globe?” she slips the water out of her water skin discreetly. “I’d never tell you anything.”

He grunts, his breath unnaturally hot against her shoulder.

His exasperation is her distraction. In the seconds before his interrogation starts up again, she drops to her knees and sweeps her water backwards, knocking the firebender to the ground.

Katara rushes for the door and doesn’t stop running until she’s sure no lurking handsome firebender is on her tail.

~

Zuko huffs as Iroh flits from table to table, apologizing for the commotion. Though, most of their regular customers know well that some in the city don’t react well to Fire Nation within the walls.

As Iroh rushes around the shop, Zuko puts away his broadswords. While the exchange with the waterbender proved useless, he did find it satisfying to take out his swords every once in a while. It was the moments when he was brandishing his weapons that he felt less exposed, less vulnerable.

He mops up the water the girl had splashed across the floor, still sore from crashing to the ground earlier. He can hardly pay attention to the pain.

Azula is approaching Ba Sing Se and he has no idea how to process that. He knows if Azula catches wind of him and his Uncle, she’ll come. Come to taunt, to toy, to terrorize.

Zuko sighs. Just when he had accepted his fate as a banished prince with stupid useless royal blood, Azula has to come in and turn his mind into a storm.

“Uncle?” Zuko puts up the mop at the back of the shop where Iroh is storing away tea leaves.

“An interesting day it has been, right Prince Zuko?” he laughs heartily. “Who could imagine a waterbender in our humble shop today!”

“A waterbender who’s affiliated with Azula and the Avatar.” his hands turn to fists. “Don’t you remember what the Fire Lord had asked of me when I was banished? He wanted me to chase the Avatar! And of course Azula managed to find an Avatar that’s been missing for a hundred years!”

Iroh sighs deeply, placing a hand on Zuko’s shoulder. “All I want is for you to let the past go, Prince Zuko. Does it matter what Azula is off doing?”

“She could find us! How could you not understand?” Zuko is more than tired of hearing about how he has to let the past go. He has.

“Do you fear seeing her, or do you fear her seeing you here, nephew? Be honest.” the lines etched into Iroh’s face seem to deepen, aging him. “Are you afraid of her seeing you honorable without a crown?”

Zuko steps back, eyes shut tight. “I have no honor. I’ve accepted that.”

“If that is what you think, then you have not accepted yourself, Prince Zuko.” Iroh sighs and turns away from him. “That is why your fire is dying.”

The blow throws him. He glances down at the palms that have been unable to produce a flame greater than that of a stovetop. His inner fire had flickered out months ago and he knew why. He knew it was losing everything he had, his mother, his home, his family, his title, his honor. Zuko has been stripped of his identity and his fire has been doused. “Regardless, Azula is on our heels now, Uncle.” Zuko takes a deep breath. “And I’m going to figure out how to keep us safe from her.”

Iroh nods. “If you insist on chasing Azula, I imagine this might help you.” he slides something out of his apron pocket and presses it into Zuko’s hand. Offering him a smile, he says, “I hope you find what you are searching for, nephew.”

Zuko stares at the Water Tribe pendant in his hand, the one that had been hanging from the girl’s neck. He nods. “Thank you, Uncle.”

He claps Zuko on the shoulder. “My teas won’t serve themselves.”

~

“Hey Katara! How did putting up posters go?” Aang waves from the couch on their Ba Sing Se home, fiddling with his staff.

Katara pastes a smile on her face, bending the sweat off her forehead. “It went great! I think we’ll find Appa really soon!”

She had decided not to tell the rest of the gang about the Fire Nation teashop. It wasn’t worth it to send the whole squad in to scope it out, even though that firebender had threatened her with a sword under her chin. And made her heart race like Azula was chasing it. But that’s just a silly irrelevant detail.

Besides, the elderly guy seemed nice enough. She isn’t worried.

“Something’s different about you.” Sokka squints, pointing a paintbrush at her from his dark oak desk. “Did you change your hair?”

“Yeah! It looks so much better, Katara!” Toph laughs, as she picks at her toes.

“Ha ha, Toph, you’re so funny.” Katara rolls her eyes, collapsing onto a plush green chair near Aang. “But no, I didn’t do anything with my hair.”

Aang gasps. “Your necklace is gone!”

Katara reaches for her neck, coming up empty. She mentally smacks herself. She must have left it on the table after it had broken at the teashop. “Oh,” she sighs. “It must have fallen off when I was, um, putting up posters.”

“Please don’t tell me we have to put up posters for the necklace now too,” Toph groans, falling back against the ground.

Aang touches Katara’s shoulder and smiles. “We’ll find it, don’t worry.”

Katara nods, brows drawing together. She knows exactly where to start.

[akitsune-lune]

Are you into musicals at all? If so which ones?

uh oh lol don’t open this can of worms... I’ll offer a few with songs I like off the soundtracks ;)

Old Stock is a fantastic musical about Jewish refugees and uhhh extremely relevant: Traveller’s Curse / Truth Doesn’t Live in a Book / Plough the Shit  (also.... You’ve Arrived, Lullaby, Fledgling, and What Love Can Heartbreak Allow can you tell I love this musical)

I also love Six, a musical about King Henry’s six wives: Get Down / All You Wanna Do (warning for sexual abuse on the latter)

The Twelfth Night Musical because of course I love that: You’re the Worst / Is This Not Love

The As You Like It Musical BECAUSE OF COURSE (this one doesn’t have a cast recording which is an absolute tragedy but): Rosalind, Be Merry / Will U Be My Bride / When I’m Your Wife

I really love Lizzie, a musical about Lizzie Borden the uhhh axe murderer... bIG warning for sexual abuse, it’s mentioned in House of Borden, escalates in This is Not Love (I know, Is This Not Love and This is Not Love) and gets extremely direct and upsetting in Soul of the White Bird so tread carefully: House of Borden / Shattercane and Velvetgrass (this ask triggered a full-blown fixation on Lizzie lmao so uhh thanks for that)

I also love Hadestown and Wicked, but they’re more popular so I don’t think they need a rec lol

[cowtale-utau]

Music Masterlist 2

So here’s another one of these. The first hit 200 songs, and I decided that was plenty. So here’s 201 on. When I hit 401 you’ll see yet another.

Calling All Skeletons – Alkaline Trio

Secret – The Pierces

What About Us – P!nk

I Stand Alone – Godsmack

Don't Care – Sullivan King

Let Me Hear You Scream – Ozzy Osbourne

Save Me – Shinedown

Snack – Flo Rida

WHY – NF

Under The Pressure – The Score

Under Again – Bullet For My Valentine

Voices – Motionless In White

The Violence – Asking Alexandria

Lonely Day – System of a Down

Knife In My Heart – Kina

Until I Met You – Alina Baraz

Go To Heaven – The Pierces

Under The Table – Fiona Apple

Dazed & Confused – Ruel

Rabbit Hole – AviVA

Who Am I – Besomorph

Sad – Chico Rose

Walking The Wire – Imagine Dragons

Piece Of Your Heart – Meduza

Never Gonna Catch Me – El Speaker & Skan

Zero Gravity – of Verona

Young And Menace – Fall Out Boy

Fucking Asshole – Little Big

Fuck Up My High – Wilson

Scar Tissue – Red Hot Chili Peppers

Ruin My Life – Zara Larsson

Resurrection By Erection - Powerwolf

Worst In Me – Unlike Pluto

Skeleton – Inverness

Revolution – Diplo

Under Your Spell – The Sweeplings

Redemption - - Besomorph

Sound of Madness – Shinedown

Riptide – Unlike Pluto

Smile – 8 Graves

Stricken – Disturbed

Game of Survival – Ruelle

No Mercy – UNSECRET

The Sky Is A Neighborhood – Foo Fighters

Somebody Someone – Korn

Champion – Fall Out Boy

Stand by You - Rachel Platten

Starry Eyed - Ellie Goulding

Talk Shit - Millionaires

How I Could Just Kill a Man - Rage Against the Machine

Blackout - AViVA

Superman - Rachel Platten

RIP - 8 Graves

Stomp Me Out - Bryce Fox

Wolves - Sam Tinnesz

Won’t Go Down Easy - JAXSON GAMBLE

You Said - Eurielle

Zero - Imagine Dragons

Prayer of the Refugee - Rise Against

Jenny - Nothing More

Renegades - X Ambassadors

Ride It - Regard

Zero - The Smashing Pumpkins

Rise Up - Imagine Dragons

Killer - Valerie Broussard

Simmer - Hayley Williams 

Hurt - Oliver Tree

Camisado - Panic! at the Disco

Iris - The Goo Goo Dolls

The Bones - Maren Morris

Don’t Leave - DJ Snake & MO 

We Found Love - Rihanna

The Kid I Used to Know - Arrested Youth

Not Today - Unlike Pluto

Saints - Echos

Fall In Line - Christina Aguilera

Sacrifice - Afterlife

4 O’Clock - Emilie Autumn 

Hi - Adam Jensen

Middle Finger - Bohnes

Riot! - Arrested Youth

Atlas Falls - Shinedown

Darkside - Sam Tinnesz

Radioactive - Imagine Dragons

[youngbloodbuzz]

Tell me about your characters! Answer 10 of your favorite of those questions!

sagklsdjfsndf bro thank you! i love talking about my kids

23.  If your character could go back in time and change one thing about their life, what would it be?

venia: she would have run away from her normal life as the royal princess earlier after spending her entire life living in fear as a born fire sorcerer in a kingdom where using magic is punishable by death. instead now she’s on the run from being found out and having to fight her way out the palace. 

andromeda: she would run deeper into the underdark instead of risking the life of the man who died saving her and breaking the heart of his wife, who andy highly admires and respects

theodora: i don’t think she would. she isn’t a believer in fate or destiny but she knows that everything she’s done, she’d do all over again. though i think maybe she’d try to talk to her brother more about what they had been through to get where they are now, as migrants and refugees. 

33. What person does your character admire most?

venia: she had once admired her father as a child, but then she’d witnessed his reign of terror as she got older. then it was her mother, who she emulated to survive the court and life in general, but then her mother turned out to have known about ven’s magic the entire time and never said anything. and then her eldest cousin, the only person she ever willingly told about her magic as a young kid and encouraged it, comes rushing to save her at a moments notice and they escape the kingdom together, and... at this point ven’s trying not to keep her hopes up anymore. 

andromeda: without a doubt hands down it’s professor essaris, a wizard and headmaster/teacher of her own school and the wife of the man, maximus, who died helping to save andy in the underdark. andy wants more than anything to live up to the expectations of max dying for her to octavia but octavia has her own complex issues with andy since she’s the reason her husband is dead even as she’s been trying to help her through her amnesia. it’s....a Lot. 

theodora: it was once her older brother, jaxon. the one person who stood side by side with her in agreement of how to save the group and helped her do the dirty work. but it’s been months and months later now and one day she wakes to find him gone, leaving her a single letter telling her he can’t face what he’s done anymore and he’s off to find his own fortune somewhere far away. she burns the letter. 

36.  What would be your character’s theme song/favorite band/favorite genre of music?

venia: oh i have playlsits for all of them. she has a few but if i had to choose, ven’s theme song would be it’s a fire by portishead, but also instrumentally it’d be the winds of winter by ramin djawadi. maybe i was inspired by dany. what of it. 

andromeda: televangelist and conversation piece by julien baker; i cannot choose one, my poor girl is so depressed lmao. and dead before the dawn by ramin djawadi which genuinely helped me form the idea of how she saw the sunrise for the first time as an amnesiac when climbing out of the underdark after being trapped there for two years. 

theodora: angel by massive attack and caleb’s seduction by mark koven. her life is lowkey a horror movie. 

41. Does your character care about how they’re perceived by others? How do they change themselves to fit in with other people?

venia: as a born royal first in line to the throne, she sure does. it’s almost an inherent trait from her mother, where she learned to control her emotions, her expressions, how to speak in court. it’s second nature at this point. 

andromeda: being a six foot tall tiefling with grey-purplish skin, she makes an immediate impression but that’s not what worries her. she tries to come off as worldly and normal and not like a person who has amnesia and intelligence of 8 but it’s kind of hard when she assumes/lies in front of other people about knowing something when it’s actually wrong or not true. 

theodora: for the most part, she couldn’t a shit tbh. mostly she wears a mask of whatever she knows will appease others to get her way. 

51. Is your character the most swayed by ethos, pathos, or logos?

venia: i think at first it’d be ethos because of the way she was raised to respect arguments of such, but over time away from that kind of environment, it’d be in-between pathos and logos but mostly pathos. 

andromeda: pathos undoubtedly. she wears her heart on her sleeve, she’s ruled by it. probably to the detriment of her own health and safety. 

theodora: logos. it’s literally how she rationalized her way into saving herself and the group she was traveling with during a disastrous migration across uncharted territory in the winter (think donner party levels of disaster...)

54. How does your character feel about keeping secrets from the rest of the party?

venia: all day every day she keeps secrets. her entire life and existence is a secret. venia isn’t her real name. zen is in fact her cousin, not her brother. she’s terrified and paranoid, but on the surface she’s reserved sweet charm and smiles.  

andromeda: for someone who’s generally an open book, andy keeps many things to herself, but it’s all always to protect herself and her heart from the shame of the truth. her amnesia and low intelligence and her experiences at the essaris grammar school did a number on her self-esteem and self-worth.

theodora: she has no issues with it at all. she’ll do it for the sake of herself and the group if she believes if it’s for the right reasons. 

59. Does your character value their own best interest more than the party’s?

venia: at a certain point, yes. she grew up a privileged princess, and even though she has a good empathetic and diplomatic heart, she still has a lot to learn. and she’s just been thrust in a world that doesn’t care about her with zero warning or preparation so she’s going in cold turkey.

andromeda: oh andy....my dear sweet depressed andy. if it came down to staying safe or risking her life for someone, or even worse, a child, she would gladly lay down her life. no hesitations, no questions asked.

theodora: she’s alive for a reason and it’s because she made the hard choice, the only logical choice. she likes to think she did it to save the group, and her small family in particular who were a part of this venture, but really, she’d do anything for her own best interest. including cannibalism. no she doesn’t regret it.

73. If your character knew that they were going to die in a month, how would they spend the rest of their life?

venia: well. if she’s going to die, she’s going to die fighting in a blaze of righteous fury. she’ll find the fastest way home and find some way, any way, to convince her father to stop his tyranny. even if that means starting a revolution and dying a martyr. 

andromeda: god. it would be such a quiet resignation and acceptance. like she knows she’s cheated death. knows it in her very bones, knows she should have died and not maximus. she would go back to those that took care of her in her first few months back into the world and say her goodbyes, but in a way where an unsuspecting person wouldn’t realize it was happening. she’d spend as much time as possible with them, and exploring the city, spending time in the temple of pelor where she felt most at peace. she’d think about trying one last time to find her real family but would consider it a lost cause. and then on the second last day, she would pack her bag with her journal and her favourite books of history and poetry, and quietly walk into the wilderness never to be seen again.

theodora: like hell she’s dying. she’s an undying warlock, she’d sell her soul double time to her patron to prevent it from happening. if that won’t work, she’d look for some other entity. it’s not happening. she will literally do anything to prevent it. 

81. What does your character’s name represent to them? (Or: why as a player did you choose your character’s name?)

venia: ven’s name i specifically chose for an incredibly niche plot reason. venia means “forgiveness. consent, permission, approval,” and the etymology derives from the name venus, which as a goddess represents “prosperity,” and as a planet is also called the morning star and is one of the brightest objects in the sky. venus also represents lucifer, the light-bringer, a being who fell far from heaven. there is also a long held belief, a prophecy, in venia’s home kingdom for centuries that “the morning star will rise to bring the kingdom to ashes and bring forth a new world aflame.” a prophecy that’s driven the line of king’s mad with paranoia. and guess who was born as a phoenix sorcerer. 

andromeda: honestly? i just really liked the name lmao she’s a haunted one who was born under a dark star, i figured a good astrology name would be fitting. 

theodora: i also thought this was just a really good name but i mean, her full name is theodora cane which means gift of god and warlike respectively and when you put it together....i mean..... not too bad.  

85. What would be your character’s major in college?

venia: political science and law. 

andromeda: english and library sciences.

theodora: theo’s my newest so it’s tough to nail her down but i think she’d try for a medical degree but then drop out to become a private investigator 

[orangeflavoryawp]

Jonsa - “A Violence Done Most Kindly”, Part 8

See?  I told you I wouldn’t leave you long without an update.  ;)

“A Violence Done Most Kindly”

Chapter Eight: Sowing Seeds

“The road is too long.  It winds too sharp.  And Sansa cannot see the end from her vantage point, cannot calculate the curve.  She discerns it through faith.  She travels blind, but for her hand in Jon’s.”  -  Jon and Sansa.  Stark is a house of many winters.

Read it on Ao3 here.

Part 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 fin

* * *

It’s a tomb, Sansa discovers.  One long, torchlit, communal tomb.

           She glances down the length of the crypt corridor where she sits and waits with the rest of the fear-rattled refugees, echoes of the battle raging above them, around them, resounding through the walls in an endless, harrowing nightmare.  The ground shakes at their feet, the dirt rattling loose from the walls and ceiling with the thunder of thousands of undead feet barreling through the army above them.

           At some point, Tyrion makes to reach for her hand, a measure of comfort – but for her or himself, she cannot tell.  In the end, he never lights his touch.  His hand stills mid-reach for her, fingers curling back into a loose fist that returns slowly to his side as he opens his mouth, voice a strangled hope. “We must take heart, Lady Sansa. Our loved ones will prevail.  Have faith.”

           “Your queen just tried to ransom all our lives – yours included – for a paltry, hollow crown,” she hisses, the terror making her voice tremble even as she glares.  “Do not speak to me of faith when yours has been so misguided.”  It’s a searing rebuke, her hands bundled tightly in her lap, the fabric of her dress clutched between white knuckles.

           Tyrion blinks pained eyes at her, glancing down to his feet.  He does not deny her – does not challenge her accusation. He simply hangs his head, a tremulous sigh leaving him.

           She watches him quietly, a faint memory teasing the back of her mind – Jaime’s return to King’s Landing after his stay as Robb’s captive up North. She’d watched them from behind the door of her and Tyrion’s newly shared chambers, watched their embrace in his solar, Jaime kneeling down to one knee, Tyrion’s face buried in his shoulder, each of their hands (the ones left, at least) bunched in each other’s tunics, before they pulled back reluctantly, hesitant, shaking sighs racking both of them, Jaime’s good hand reaching up to trail the scar over Tyrion’s face, a question in his furrowed brow, an apology in his salt-tinged eyes.

           But Tyrion had smiled at him, ruined face a mask of ill-kept pain.  “Welcome home, brother,” he’d said, voice breaking.

           Sansa had retreated before she could witness more, before the stain of Robb’s name could light her tongue in abject resentment.

           Looking at him now, this wreckage of past mistakes made flesh, she remembers suddenly the pain of losing a brother.

           The pain of losing many brothers.

           Sansa swallows tightly, the anger bleeding out of her face, brow smoothing out, lips softening in their frown.  She clears her throat gently, looking down to the bunched fists at his sides when she tells him, “Ser Jaime is like to survive the night.  He’s a good fighter, after all.”  She doesn’t know what compels her to say it.

           “Was,” he corrects, a sad sort of humor coloring the words.  He releases a wounded chuckle, eyes finally rising to meet hers.

           They stare at each other for long moments.

           He’d been kind to her, she knows, at a time when the world offered little kindness at all.  But he’s been mistaken in his affections before, and now they host a dragon in their den, owing in no small part to his own imprudent devotion.

           He was never meant to play the knight in her tale, like her favored songs had promised.  She sees this now, in a way she hadn’t when she was still a child, looking for the best in people, holding their small mercies to her heart like precious gems, mistaking lions and hounds for men.

           “But you’re very gracious, my lady,” he says finally, the gratitude choked off at the end, breath hitching with his dread.  He offers her a tentative smile.

           She finds it in herself to return it, in what small measure she can.

           And then a crashing weight falls upon the ground above them, rattling the stone statues.  The crypts go dead with silence.

           Sansa glances up at the suddenly tranquil walls, her heart swallowed down instantly.  Nothing breathes for what feels like an eon, the telltale sounds of battle ceased, the shaking of the corridors stilled.  She does not chance a breath, a word, even a hope.  She flits her gaze toward the heavy stone door they built to barricade the crypts, eyes unblinking in the shadowed hall, torchlight flickering about her like a threat.

           Long minutes pass, almost an hour of suffocating, uninterrupted silence, and then something bangs at the door.  A single, resounding clang.

           Sansa jolts to her feet, chest heaving with her terror, hand already fumbling for the dragonglass dagger fixed to her belt.

           Another clang.  Heavy, terrible scratching.  The slight push of the door in the sodden dirt.

           Sansa’s breath comes quick and shallow, the uneven hilt of her dagger digging into her palm even through her glove, her fingers flexing in their hold, feet planted in readiness.

           The door pushes further in on them, slow and grating, something grunting on the other side.

           Several somethings.

           More thuds against the door, more scratching, the sudden stream of light through a crack in the threshold, and then the muffled sound of a word.

           A word.

           A name.

           “Sansa!” it calls, stifled by the cold stone between them.

           She drops her dagger instantly at the recognition and it clatters to the floor, sharp and resounding in the still corridor.  A small crowd gathers a few feet behind her, too frightened to follow further.  She rushes to the door, gripping at the jarred open edge, sunlight striking her knuckles, a sob already raking through her, the tears sudden and hot on her lids, and she heaves.

           The door breaks open to a blaring dawn, several men – living, breathing men – tumbling through the threshold when the door finally gives from their combined strength.

           Sansa stumbles back, eyes wide, blinking back the blindness, adjusting to the light as she braces an arm over her eyes, searching, needing, frantic, and then –

           “Sansa.”

           That voice again.

           She blinks against the harsh light, his silhouette coming into focus.

           Edmure Tully hobbles through the threshold, one hand holding his side, his other arm lame and bloodied and likely lost, one eye swollen shut beneath a stream of blood.

           She stares at him, mouth parting, lungs clenching.

           A sigh of relief rushes from him, the pain of it clear when he winces.

           It breaks from her like a flood.  She launches herself at him, arms thrown about his shoulders, the sob dragging from her without restraint, and Edmure grunts from the assault, stumbling back from the weight of her, a cry of pain blunted at his lips just before the first wail breaks from her.

           He stills in her embrace, blinking beneath the gush of blood from his temple, until he tentatively folds his good arm around her waist, holding her to him, a cough sounding at her ear, wavering beneath the force of her, weak and trembling and barely standing.

           But alive.

           Sansa whimpers against him, clutching at his soiled tunic, tears smearing into the blood along his neck, the shadow of the crypts at her back, the blinding breach of sunlight at his.

           At the threshold between life and death, light and dark, day and night – they stand.

           Dawn creeps slowly past their forms, illuminating the stifled corridor behind her.

           Not a tomb, she realizes, but a sunlit garden, a place where the dead may offer new growth.

           A place of promised life.

           Winter has always been the herald of spring, after all.

* * *

           They say the dead all dropped at once – an instant, resounding wave, the weight of so many corpses tumbling to the earth at once quite literally shaking Winterfell to its foundation.  

The men keep fighting, swinging at air, even crossing blades themselves, feverish and feral and frenzied, their blood rioting in their veins, hardly noticing the fall of the dead, so lost in their own desperate will to survive, fighting, and panting, and fighting still, the smell of blood and shit all around them, shapes in the shadows, the frantic, blade-gripping, adrenaline-rushing fear still coursing through them, until gradually, man by man, breath by breath, a slow-dawning stillness overtakes them.

For every man standing, there is a litter of corpses at his feet.

An unearthly calm washes over Winterfell, the living barely that.  And then –

And then.

A hesitant, slow rise of voices.  A growing eddy of shouts.  Triumphant.  Glorious.

Crying, and laughing, and shouting.  Hands over blood-drenched faces.  Knees in the dirt. Heads thrown back.  A quaking, resounding exhale.  Blades falling from grimy palms.  Boots squelching through the putrid mess.  And still, a roar of exultation.

“The King in the North!  The King in the North!  The King in the North!”

Jon slips into a coma so deep, they’d thought him dead upon first entering the room.

Davos tells her that he and Jon’s personal guard were the ones to find him – laid out on the floor of her chambers, barely breathing, a pool of blood beneath him, her brother sitting calmly in his chair, blood-drenched dagger still held in his grip.

“Help him,” Bran had said, so quiet it was almost a whisper, almost never there at all.

It takes five men to hold Tormund back from lunging at Bran, shouting his vehemence so vile and hateful the spit flies from his mouth, even as he kicks out, foot catching the wheel of Bran’s chair, jostling him so hard he nearly tips over and crashes to the blood-soaked rug himself.  Bran stares dumbly at the space Jon’s body once occupied, red-steeped palm now empty of the blade that pierced his flesh, hanging limp in his lap, hardly even acknowledging Tormund’s wrestling form inches from him, the wildling’s heated shouts filling the dawn-touched chamber.

Davos tells her that his guard has been sworn to secrecy after taking Jon from the room, only the most trusted of men – those of them left after the battle.

Bran retreats from her solar and into her bedchamber, closing the door behind him in silence once Tormund is dragged from the room.

She stands staring at the closed door, eyes blinking owlishly.  Davos seems of a similar state beside her, perhaps still reeling from his own unexpected survival.  Perhaps still trying to process the scene before them.  Her eyes travel back down to the blood-stained rug that was once her parents’.  

She’s going to be sick.

Sansa reaches a trembling hand for the table edge beside her when the vomit rises suddenly, without warning.  She retches violently, bent double with the force of it, hand slipping against the table edge, trying to find purchase as she heaves and heaves, emptying herself out from the very pit of her.  Her face bursts red with the effort of it, tears springing to her eyes, sickly bile streaming from her lips when she stumbles to her knees, legs finally giving out.

“My lady,” Davos cries, urgent at her side, his blood-slicked gloves slipping over her elbow when he tries to steady her.

She takes a breath, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, eyes flitting to his red-darkened gloves.  She stares at them, eyes focusing and refocusing, throat raw and burning.  “I have to find my sister,” she says blearily, a ragged whisper breaking across her chapped lips as she struggles to get to her feet.

It’s many hours before she finds Arya.  Sansa walks through the halls in a faint stupor, having left the chamber without another word after Davos’s recounting, unable to look at the dark blossom of blood staining the rug, the bile still fresh in her throat, and she stumbles from the room, a hand steadying herself along the threshold, ignoring Davos’ concerned calls at her back, wondering from the room in a haze.  She sifts through the corpse littered halls, the ends of her skirts dark with mud and blood and worse, tripping over cadavers, her low heels catching in cartilage, trembling hands gripping at the walls for balance, lungs heaving beneath the foul air.

Arya stands dazedly at the end of the corridor Sansa has made her way through.  She blinks unsteadily up at Sansa, a dark bruise swelling up her right cheek, her eye nearly closed from the enflamed skin.  Her tunic is torn at the shoulder, a garish wound stretching over the exposed flesh.  She hardly seems to notice the bleeding.  The fingers of her left hand are bent at an unhealthy angle, broken surely, and Needle shakes in the grip of her other palm.

Sansa stands staring at her, one hand gathered in her trailing skirts, mouth parted on a sharp inhale.

Arya swallows, eyes focusing in the filtering daylight through the hall’s sparse windows.  She blinks.  Blinks again. Seems to recognize her surroundings a moment before Sansa breathes her name.

“Arya.”

And then she’s sprinting, Needle dropped to the floor with a sharp clang, bounding over corpses, slipping along the blood-slick stone, steadying herself, never slowing, breathless, gasping – “Sansa!” – a whirl of soiled leather and crimson-stained skin slamming into her, bundling her in her fierce grip, arms tight around her waist, sob buried in her chest, broken fingers digging painfully into the back of Sansa’s dress, stumbling them back along the ruin-washed floor, breath ragged and worn and desolate when it leaves her small, battered form.

It takes hours to find her.

It takes hours still to let her go.

* * *

Sansa makes her way through the ruined halls of her home, passing straggling soldiers, weaving through the wreckage to the main square.  She breaks into the harsh daylight, but it’s greyed since dawn, a haze of ash and snow blanketing Winterfell.  Arya follows the trail of her soiled skirts as they pick their way around corpses, walking over limbs and debris.

The words she needs to tell Arya about Jon are still lost to her, a vacant, empty wandering having overtaken her instead. Arya keeps her always in sight, a silent shadow at her back.

A blood-curdling wail streaks through the air and Sansa stills, whipping her head to the sound, catching sight of Daenerys staggering across the courtyard toward something, arms outstretched, mouth tipped open in a harrowing, anguished scream.  Missandei is steady at her side, an arm around her waist, holding her frail body up lest the winter wind take her and fling her about like this choking ash.

Distantly, she recalls Davos’ brief mention of the dragons’ fates.

She follows Daenerys’ tear-filled gaze across the courtyard, eyes landing on the form of a mortally wounded Grey Worm, dragging the dead body of Jorah Mormont over the stone and guts and toward his queen. His boot catches on a piece of debris, and he lurches forward, dropping to one knee, half sprawled over Jorah’s body. Daenerys makes it to them then, falling to the ground gracelessly, ignoring the putrid slush of human filth beneath her knees, eyes only for her bear, a desperate, bone-rattling cry ripping from her as she bundles his cold form in her hands, dragging him into her lap, rocking with him, sobbing, tear tracks etched across her ash-grey cheeks. Misssandei takes Grey Worm into her arms similarly and from where Sansa stands, she can see a handful of words tearfully exchanged between the two before Grey Worm convulses - once, twice, a last, jerky spasm – and then finally going still in Missandei’s arms. She bends her head low to touch her forehead to his and Sansa never hears what parting words she grants him, what farewell or peace.

Daenerys’ cries echo around the courtyard, and even still, exhausted, bloodied soldiers mill about as though she were just another corpse beneath their feet.  They pass her like shadows, unbent to her anguish.

It is just another death, after all.

Sansa turns from the sight, the bile returning sharp and pungent along her tongue, but she swallows it back this time, braces a hand to her ribcage, as though to keep the sickness in, as though to anchor it there with her wrath and regret and remorse.

It festers quietly and unobtrusively, settling low in her stomach.  

She turns from the sight of the grieving dragon queen, her pity too marred and eroded by a sharp resentment to taste like anything but ash on her tongue.  Eyes narrowed, jaw tight, she continues on – aimless.

Somewhere between the eastern corridor and the ruined door to the Hall of Lords, Daenerys’ faraway wails finally peter out into silence. Sansa takes a deep breath in, pushing the broken door open with all her might, Arya pushing beside her, and the wood creaks open, splintered beneath the crush of a giant’s maul.  More bodies flood the hall before them, but there are more living here than dead, and somewhere along the far wall, Sansa catches sight of Brienne seated along a step, elbows braced along her knees, her head in her hands, sword tarnished and copper-streaked on the floor beside her.

Sansa makes her way toward her sworn shield quietly, stopping before her and squatting down, braced on her haunches, hands anchored to her knees.

Brienne looks up then, face a ruin, hair matted and dark – no longer that brilliant, sun-lit blonde that had fascinated Sansa once upon a time.

Sansa offers an exhausted smile – half-formed and fleeting as it is – her hands going to Brienne’s cheeks, cradling her face in her palms.

“Jaime’s dead,” Brienne says evenly, without prompt.

Sansa blinks at her, nodding slowly, throat tight suddenly.  She wants to say she’s sorry.  She wants to say how she knows she cared for him, even against all reasoning.  She wants to say at least he died with honor. She wants to say so many things, but she isn’t sure yet how much she means any of them.  And so, she only has this:

“He kept his oath.”  It’s a small comfort, she knows, but perhaps it’s the only kind of comfort they may have.  The only kind Brienne would accept.

Brienne nods, sharp blue eyes blinking back the wetness.  And then her eyes trail to Arya’s form, half hid in shadow at her sister’s back.

Sansa brushes her thumbs over Brienne’s cheeks, the weight a lighter load, instantly – the words easy on her tongue.  “Thank you for keeping her safe,” she chokes out.

Brienne swings her gaze back to Sansa, the edges of a hesitant smile spreading beneath the pads of Sansa’s fingertips.  “She is half your mother’s heart, after all,” she says in answer.

Sansa nods, mouth trembling when she whispers out, “And half mine.”

Brienne reaches up a hand to curl tenderly along Sansa’s wrist, the breath raking from her – exhausted and battered.

Sansa leans forward, bracing her forehead against her sworn shield’s, eyes fluttering closed at the contact.

It’s only once Sansa parts from Brienne, glancing about the hall, that Arya finally speaks.

“Where’s Jon?”

The answer lodges in her throat like a knife, splitting her from ear to ear, choking her beneath a rush of blood.  Her heart hammers out a staccato of sour notes.

Arya stares up at her, just a girl.  Just a lost, wounded girl.  “Where’s Jon?” she asks again, voice infinitely small and hesitant.

Later, when Arya flees from the hall after Sansa tells her, she finds she cannot follow.  She cannot go to him.  She cannot look upon him.

Not yet.

“Stay with her,” Sansa commands Brienne, voice hollow.  “Make sure she doesn’t kill Bran.”

Brienne looks up at her, horrified, standing swiftly. “She wouldn’t.  My lady, she…”

Sansa swings a deadened gaze her way, lips pursed tight.  “She would.” She swallows thickly, eyes drifting back toward the broken door of the hall.  “That boy isn’t our brother anymore.”

Brienne only stares at her a moment longer, nodding without another word, picking her sword up off the stone and following her charge out the hall.

Sansa’s legs finally give out and she drops down to the step Brienne had previously occupied.  She stays there for well on an hour, perhaps two, eyes unseeing.  No one comes looking for the Lady of Winterfell. No one comes looking for the living.

She wonders if it will ever end, or if this is the disillusionment Jon spoke of once before – how war makes a home in your heart and never truly leaves.  She wonders if her father hadn’t also known this.

She wonders if he would have taught her such, of if he’d have let her continue on in the sort of ignorance he never spared his sons.

Sansa sighs.

And so it goes.  

So it goes for many hours that first night, soldiers falling where their exhaustion takes them, sleeping in thresholds and corridors and neighbor to corpses.  At some point, Sansa passes the open door to the kitchens, three famished, too-young soldiers tearing into one of the store’s preserved hams.  She hasn’t the heart to scold them.  The moans of the survivors have turned into a low hum at the back of her mind, never truly reaching her.

In the end, she simply doesn’t know what to do.

It’s Missandei that jars her into movement, coming upon her with Grey Worm’s blood still warming her dress, dark circles already settling below her eyes.  “I need bandages, cloth, clean water,” she says, voice even in a way that seems a disconnection to the tear-filled gaze she sets upon her or the trembling of her hands bunched together over her skirts.

Sansa stares at her, blinking when she recognizes Lord Varys standing just behind the other woman, face a haunt.  “Lord Varys,” she says in surprise, not knowing what else to say.

“My lady, the wounded are many – too many,” he says, sorrow lining his words.  “We need your help.”

Sansa opens her mouth, closes it just as slowly.

Missandei’s mouth trembles, tears brimming along her eyes, though they do not fall.  “Please,” she croaks out.

Sansa blinks at the word, something filling her she hasn’t a name for, and it all comes barreling into her – Edmure’s bleak smile, Davos’ gaze on his boots, Arya’s stony silence –

Bran’s eerie calm – the way his hands hadn’t even shook when he wheeled himself into her bedchamber and closed the door.

She heaves a breath, a hand over her eyes, lungs quaking in her chest as she smothers the sob.  “Yes,” she chokes out, shaking her head.  “Yes, of course.”  She sniffs back the tears, doesn’t let them fall.  Her hand drops from her face and she squares her shoulders, nodding fervently at Missandei.  “Of course, come with me.”

It was wrong of them to call it the Long Night, she finds, arms covered in blood up to her elbows by the time dawn breaks once more across Winterfell.

(Wrong, because it isn’t long – it’s endless.)

And so it goes and so it goes.

Jon is right – it never truly leaves them.

* * *

They never find the Blackfish’s body.  

Sansa asks Edmure at some point, when she finds voice enough to ask the question.  Edmure stares at her with heavy eyes, sitting still for her as she wraps the bandages around his waist.  She stops at his silence, blinking up at him.

He cannot hold her gaze, turning to stare at the far wall instead.  “Saved my life, the old bastard,” he gets out on a gruff exhale, eyes wetting instantly.

Sansa swallows, returning to her wrapping with a renewed focus.

Pack it away, bury it deep.  Take a breath and hold it tight.

She does not cry, mutely winding the roll of bandage round and round his waist, staring at the fresh patch of blood already peeking through the white linen.  Her brows furrow in frustration, the air scraping along her throat with her huff.

Later, she tells herself.  She will grieve for him later.

There is work yet to be done, and Sansa means to do it.

“Your parents would be proud.”

She ties the bandage off with a tight knot.

They never find his body, but then, there are many bodies they never find – Alys Karstark, Lord Royce, Randyll Tarly, Podrick Payne, Edd Tollett.  Sansa remembers each of them anyway.

Building the pyres is slow, agonizingly long work, and there are too many bodies mangled beyond recognition.  The fires burn day and night, needing to be relit several times before the many bones are finally turned to ash.  Smoke clogs her lungs, stains the grey walls with a permanent dark haze, the scent sinking into her flesh until she is rife with it – the dredges of their dead, come to live again in her skin.

Days pass in this manner, and Sansa forgets to sleep, too occupied with the running of a kingdom she never intended to inherit.

Jon remains unconscious, his body like ice to the touch, breath barely discernible.  Ghost is found perpetually curled at the foot of his bed, whining long and low into the night.  Sansa braces her hands to her ears and tries to drown it out.

Bran stays locked in her bedchamber, refusing food, and she has taken to sleeping with Arya when exhaustion finally takes her. Her sister spends that first day after the battle pacing the length of her solar, glaring at the closed door, never even bothering to bandage her wounded shoulder.

“Bran, get out here,” she seethes.  

Silence.

She kicks at the door, howls her rage, sobs and sobs and sobs for her brother to just open the gods-damned door, Bran, how could you, how could you and Sansa flees the solar, braces herself back against the wall in the hallway and tries to breathe.

Arya keeps a steady vigil at Jon’s side while Sansa attends to the wounds of the North, finding much needed support in Lady Olenna and Lord Varys and, surprisingly, the young Lord Arryn. Daenerys keeps to her chamber, only ever retreating from its sanctuary to retrieve a flagon or two of wine from the kitchens, her salt-white, fire-dimmed silhouette casting lingering shadows in the corner of Sansa’s eye.

Davos is true to his word, the harrowing truth behind Jon’s condition never leaving that bloodied chamber.  But word spreads of Jon’s true parentage.  The wounded soldiers, in their beds of straw lining the corridors, whisper it through the halls.

A Targaryen.  A trueborn one at that.

An imposter.

Sansa comes upon one such whispering horde of Northmen just when Lord Glover, with his one missing eye and half-burnt face, grabs a loose-lipped soldier by the collar and drags him up, snarling in his face. “And what Targaryen ever died for the North?” he bellows in the man’s sheet-pale face, shaking him.  “What Targaryen ever bled for us the way Jon Snow has?”

The man splutters in his grasp, hands clawing at the fist at his throat.

“I know no king but King Jon of House Stark,” he roars, spit flying in his rage.  “And I swear, on the old gods and the new, that I will gut the man who besmirches his name, do you understand me?”

The man in his grasp nods sharply, gulping his fear down, sighing in relief when Lord Glover drops him back to the floor.

Sansa stands at the end of the hall, watching with a lung-tingling fascination.

Lord Glover seems to notice her then, dipping into a slight bow at her presence, a hand at his chest.  “My queen,” he says, and Sansa’s breath catches in her throat at the address.

She stares at him, eyes unblinking, hands bunching in her skirts.

He does not move until she nods her dismissal, and then he’s sweeping from the hall, his cloak billowing in his wake. She does not notice the curious stares of the soldiers.  She watches the space he once occupied, heart thrumming in her chest, throat parched.

“My queen.”

Sansa retreats from the hall without further word.

A new whisper begins, this one voiced in reverence.

The White Wolf and the Red Queen.

It spills over the castle, past the walls, echoing from ear to ear – until they are lore, as entrenched in the Northern spirit as snow is to winter.

“I’m sorry he could not be laid to rest at sea,” Sansa tells Yara one morning, the faint pink of the sunrise casting slants of ghostly light across the pyres, now barely embers in the snow.

She holds tight to her chest the memory of Theon’s last embrace, that night before the end.

She holds tight.

Beside her, Yara digs her booted toe into the cinder-lined snow, watching it crest and break before her.  “Still,” she says, voice hoarse, “he did not die away from home. For that, I am grateful.”  She glances up at Sansa with the words.

She dares not speak, throat tight with unspoken yearning.

Yara nods at her, a hard smile breaking across her lips.  “The Drowned God takes even his wayward sons, after all.  Theon is at peace, perhaps for the first time in his miserable life.”

Sansa winces at the words, though not from offense. It’s a willowing regret, memory washing over her.

(His trembling hand in hers as they leapt from the height of Winterfell’s walls.)

Yes.

Peace.

Give him peace, gods, please, if you’ve any mercy left in you – give him peace.

Sansa’s eyes flutter shut, heart carving a hollow between her ribs.

“My brother respected you, cared for you in a way I may never understand, but – ”

Sansa opens her eyes to watch Yara in the slow-brimming light of dawn.

Yara swallows tightly, turning to her fully.  “I wish to honor his faith,” she promises staunchly.  “I swear to you now – queen to queen – the North will have the Iron Islands’ friendship, from now until the waves take us.”

Sansa stares at her, a visage of her lost Theon, in the lines of her nose and the clench of her jaw and the curl of hair sweeping across her brow.  Something aches in Sansa that feels jarringly like the beginning of a long, quiet grief. She releases a shaky breath with her words.  “I would gladly trade it to have him back – even for a day.”

Yara offers a tender smile, something like gratitude passing through her eyes.  “I know. That’s why you shall always have it.”

Sansa nods, feeling the lingering heat of the spent pyres at her side.  Like a promise.

“I would have died to get you there.”

           Yara extends her hand, salt-grimed glove open and waiting.

           Sansa does not let it stay empty for long.  She reaches forward, clasping arms with her fellow queen.  “Sail well,” she tells her, a gentle hope lining the words.

           Yara smiles at her, fingers gripping at her forearm, head bowed in respect.  “What is dead may never die.”

           Perhaps such words might have been a haunt in moons past, the threat of the Night King still a visceral, immediate thing.  But now, the words are heartening.

           Now, they sound like a plea that’s been begging her lips for freedom.

           Now, they are a promise.

(She doesn’t want to be a Red Queen if it’s only to a dead king.)

* * *

She visits Jon on the third day.

           She finds Arya sitting outside his door, sharpening Needle.  It seems a pointless task, but she does not tell her so, because then –

           (Sansa ignores the quiet reminder at the back of her mind that whispers ‘Daenerys’ over and over, like a chant, a mantra.  A dragon without wings is not without teeth, after all.)

She stares down at Arya, watching as her sister stills the whetstone over her blade, eyes a blank mask when she blinks up at her.

           “Will you let me through?” she whispers with an exhaustion she has not let herself feel until now – until she is at his door, merely paces from him.

           Arya cocks a brow her way, leaning back in her chair.  “Took you long enough.”  There’s a sharpness to the words – an accusation.

           Sansa swallows tightly.  She just wants to breathe.

           (She’s been trying to catch her breath since she first saw the stain of his blood along her furs.)

           She just wants to breathe.

           “Will you let me through?” she asks again, the words a strangled whisper.

           Arya narrows her eyes at her, jaw clenched tight.  She nods finally, gaze drawn down.  Sansa slips into the room beneath the whisper of her wool skirts.

           The door slips shut behind her and she’s left staring at him as he lies there, tucked beneath furs, so peaceful she might have mistaken him for asleep any other time.

           She takes a step closer, trembling.  A short, stunted breath leaves her.  Another step.  She feels the horror branching through her lungs – slow and indelicate.  She makes it all the way to the edge of his bed before she manages to breathe his name.

           “Jon.”

           He doesn’t answer.

           “Jon,” she tries again, this time louder, this time with the irrational belief that were she only louder, he would hear her and wake.

           He stays still atop the bed.

           That slow-branching horror, it sinks its hooks, brittles her bones.  It roots her there before him.  She sinks to her knees mindlessly.

           He’s so pale.  So sickly pale his skin tints blue.  

           Sansa blinks, brows furrowing.

           That blue…

           It’s frost, she realizes, a trembling hand reaching out to brush against his temple, feeling the sheen of thin ice beneath her fingertips.  She pulls her hand back instantly, a small gasp breaking over her parted lips.  

           There’s a winter in his veins, freezing him in this moment, keeping him suspended in this hopeless halfway point between life and death.  She fumbles for his pulse, two fingers pressing into the cold flesh at his throat.  His heartbeat wanes, sluggish and faint – barely even there at all.

           She licks her lips, hand retracting.  She takes a moment to look at him, eyes traveling over his scar-lined face, the unruly thatch of beard at his chin, the broad expanse of his chest when she pulls the furs down, riddled with the evidence of his betrayal – twice borne now.  Beads of blood dot the edges of his never-closing wounds.  Sansa frowns at the sight.

           There’s a cloth and clean water at the bedside, and after several moments of staring at the gashes, of trying to discern the motion of his breath, she reaches for it and sets about cleaning him.

           The blood will run again, she knows.  It is a perpetual stain, a constant reminder.  But there is something soothing about dragging the wet cloth across his flesh, wiping the filth from him.  Her eyes catch along the tangle of his dark curls lining the pillow now, brows furrowing. She finds a brush and sets to work, moving on to his beard next, taking a delicate blade to the overgrown hair, cleaning him up as best she can.  She tucks him beneath the furs once more, changes his woolen socks, calls for lukewarm broth from the attending servant girl that Arya sends in.  When the woman returns, Sansa sends her out with an appreciative smile and gentle nod, setting the first spoonful to Jon’s mouth and dabbing up the lost broth that trickles over his chin with a fresh cloth beneath her steady, fine-boned fingers.

           Arya does not come to collect her that evening, and Sansa wakes to find she has fallen asleep against the bed, knees still folded painfully stiff beneath her, Ghost nudging her to consciousness with a wet snout.  She clenches a hand in his fur and buries her face in his neck, breathing him in.

           He smells like Jon, she finds.  Like soiled snow and leather and figs.  She holds him to her for many long moments.  And then she finds the will to face another day.

           She returns after the work of tending the wounded and rebuilding Winterfell is done, after meeting with the remaining Northern lords as they try to contain the aftermath.  They’ve taken to following her rule in Jon’s absence, an unspoken act, perhaps bolstered by such vocal allegiance as Lord Glover’s and Lady Lyanna’s.  Jon’s lineage becomes the insignificance of yesterday, when there are too many walls to rebuild and too many mouths to feed and too many wounds to stich closed.  After all, there is truth to Lord Glover’s words.

           “What Targaryen ever died for the North?”

           They still call him King Jon in their whispered tales, in their fervent pleas to the old gods to heal his ailing body, to halt his perishing.  The stories are vague, blurred at the edges, no one truly knowing the way in which Jon Snow defeated the Night King, only knowing that he had.

           And perhaps that is enough.

           Sansa leaves a tray of food outside Bran’s door each morning and returns to it untouched each night.

           She will not do more.  She cannot do more.

           Not when Jon’s hand sits like ice against her small palm and the bandaged linens round his chest stain with fresh blood each morning.

           Sansa curls her vehemence back behind a still tongue, tasting its tartness with the kind of steely resignation that comes from having buried so many dead already.

           The pyres never seem to stop burning, the sky a permanent grey haze. Sometimes she finds herself staring over the ramparts at the ash-covered hills, the tainted snow of her home.  But yearning is not building, and she has grown used to busy hands.  She does not stare long.

           There is a kingdom to restore.

           She says goodbye to Lady Olenna at the gate, after her half-moon stay in Winterfell following the battle.  The older woman takes her hands in hers, a jarringly public and informal gesture of affection that makes Sansa’s chest grow warm with fondness, with the aching wonder of what might have been.

           “Take care, dear girl.  I fear this winter has only just begun.”

           Sansa nods, eyes falling to their joined hands.  “I think you might be right.”  She doesn’t let the weary sigh leave her, but she thinks Olenna might have heard it anyway.  She blinks back up at her, gaze sure.  “But we are not alone anymore.  Keep sending that grain up North, Lady Olenna, and we stand a far better chance.”

           Olenna pats her hand, a wrinkled smile tugging at her lips.  “Then I shall, Your Grace.”

           Sansa opens her mouth to object to the address, unable to keep her features from showing her startle, but Olenna only shushes her, patting her hand one last time before withdrawing.  She eyes the shadow that Daenerys casts from her perch atop the ramparts, watching the farewell in stiff, darkened silence.  “Take heed, Your Grace,” Olenna whispers.  “This world has not seen the last of dragons, it seems.”  A glint passes through her eyes as they resettle on Sansa’s.  “I wish you good fortune in the wars to come,” she says pointedly, head inclined toward her.

           Sansa does not glance upward at the indication, already feeling the dragon queen’s presence like a hand at her throat, cinching ever tighter.  But she nods her understanding, a faint smile pulling at the corners of her lips.  “Thank you, my lady.”

           Edmure Tully leaves but a few days later himself, his lame arm bandaged to his side, his Tully armor both a comfort and a haunt.  His bow is reserved, the quirk of his smile an affectionate thing when he rises back to his full height, head high.  “You know, you’re quite unlike her, in many ways, and yet, exactly like her in all the rest,” he says suddenly, a thoughtful expression gracing his features.

           Sansa cocks a curious brow up at him, a startled laugh lining her lips with earnestness.  “Oh?”

           “Like Catelyn,” he says, as though it ever needed clarifying.

           Sansa beams up at him, a hand braced to her chest as though to stem the warmth.

           His face takes on a somberness, his eyes a soft-hued blue that makes her ache with memory.  “I miss her, still. I miss her always.”

           Her mother’s brother, she reminds herself.  Her brother.

           She thinks she knows a little something about brothers – the needing of them.

           And the losing of them.

           She reaches out to grasp his gloved hand in hers, a tender thumb running over his knuckles.

           Edmure releases a soft laugh, a flicker of pain crossing his brow when he looks down at the motion, but then he’s smiling again, that Tully blue a familiar comfort now.  “I’m glad I shall not have to miss you, niece,” he tells her.

           Sansa reaches for him, and he goes to her.  They hug in the snow-veiled courtyard, gently and ardently.  She says goodbye to both her uncles, in the hollow of her heart, in the silence of prayers she has learned to always keep inward, in the kind of faith that has only ever been born of blood.

           Her gods wear familiar faces now.  She keeps them close to her heart.

           (Family is the only faith that’s ever seen her through, after all.)

           “I can’t say I’ll miss this dreadful cold, cousin,” Robin tells her upon his own farewell, shrugging his cloak tighter about his shoulders in a motion of discomfort.

           Sansa takes pity on him, moving to adjust his furs with sure, practiced hands, tightening the cross-straps over his chest and smoothing her hands over his startlingly broad shoulders.

           Not a child anymore, she finds.  But then, none of them have had that luxury for quite some years now.

           The recollection makes her softer, makes her worn heart clench just a touch tighter. “Then I shall have to make you a fine, new cloak when next you visit, my lord,” she says, her voice bright in a way it hasn’t been for far too long.

           The excitement that lights his face could not be masked even if he’d tried.

           It’s a small, endearing bit of honesty that brings a smile to her lips.

           “Will you?”

           Sansa nods fervently.

           Robin beams at her, chin lifting, standing just a bit straighter than he had before.  And then a touch of sadness wilts his smile.  “I’m sorry Lord Baelish won’t be able to join me.  I know how much he must have meant to you.”  He worries his lip.  “Arya told me he died in the battle.”

           Sansa returns her hands to his shoulders, smoothing over the edges of his cloak with a motherly touch.  “He died in service to the North.  I could not ask for more,” she tells him, voice steady, not a quiver to be found.

           Robin nods, brows furrowed, face caught somewhere between pride and regret.  And then he offers a comforting smile, dipping into a slight bow in farewell, turning almost fully before –

           He stops, glances back at her, opens his mouth with a line of hesitation worrying his brow.  “Your Jon,” he begins, and Sansa blinks at him, breath tightening in her chest.  “He’s a brave one, isn’t he?”

           Sansa resists the urge to fold the young lord into her embrace, settling instead for a grateful smile and a soft sigh.

           “I should like to get to know him better, when he wakes.”

           Sansa lets the breath flutter from her, a catch to her voice.  “I’ll see to it, my lord.”  She watches the billowing of his cloak when he leaves then, the familiar banners of the Eyrie disappearing behind the main gate with the afternoon sun.

           She returns to the council chambers that same day to find Tyrion waiting for her, standing swiftly from his chair at her presence.

           Brienne eyes him disdainfully at her back, but Sansa only gives him a blank stare.

           He worries a hand at the edge of the chair for a moment, seeming to contemplate his words.  A stilted silence breathes between them, and then he takes a step toward her.  “Your Grace,” he begins, and never gets to finish.

           “’Your Grace’?  Not ‘my lady’?  Not ‘Sansa’?” She keeps the bite tame in her words, the snap of her jaw cushioned by restraint.

           It is still strange and new, this quiet acceptance the Northerners have granted her, this title born of war and its necessities.  Davos is as insightful and stalwart a Hand to her as he was to Jon, and none of the great houses seem eager to dispute her choice, or her rule.  She wonders still, in the back of her mind, if they’d have chosen her in any other circumstance.  Or if she is simply the default now, the only Stark left worth following, with Bran sequestered in her chambers as though in self-imprisonment, and Arya slinking through Winterfell’s shadows in a grief so furious she seems more wolf than human these days.

           (Even still, she remembers the way Lord Glover had looked at her that first night in the hall, and the way Ser Davos inclines his head in deference, and the way silence blisters in the room upon her arrival, fierce and humble in equal measure.)

           Tyrion clears his throat, gaze shifted toward the table so that he does not look at her when he says, “I think by now it’s rather clear you were never my lady. Especially now that you are…”  He clears his throat again, eyes flicking back toward hers.  “Now that you are his.”

           She does not offer a rebuke, but neither does she offer confirmation.  She simply stares at him.  The room seems smaller suddenly, the air tight in her lungs.

           Tyrion’s hand falls from the chair and he takes another step toward her, looking up at her with a plead in his eyes she cannot discern.  “But that’s not why I’m here.”

           “And why are you here, Lord Tyrion?” she manages through pursed lips, tongue sharp behind her teeth.  

           (She was there when they presented Jaime’s gold hand to him after the battle, in the filtering light of a red-hazed dawn.  He’d stared at it with salt-tinged eyes, lips trembling as he bit his tongue to hold the curse, or perhaps the wail.  Eyes fluttering closed, breath raking from him like a gale, he’d finally spoken.

           “Melt it down,” he’d choked out, and then turned instantly, stalking away with a shake to his shoulders that had Sansa bracing a hand over her mouth, the sigh tumbling from her in its wounded release.)

           “I’ve come to offer my services,” he says, fists bunching at his sides.

           Sansa cocks her head at him, eyeing him carefully.  “Has your queen finally decided to rejoin the council?  To venture outside her self-imposed isolation?  Tell me, is she tired of living like a mere guest in a castle that should be hers?”

           Tyrion swallows tightly, his voice hoarse when he replies, “Daenerys is in mourning, but – ”

           “And we are not?” she scoffs.

           “But I am not here for her,” he finishes gruffly.

           Another silence pricks at them, the air bristling with unease, and Sansa tries not to notice the trembling of his fists or the downward tilt of his mouth or the anguished, lonesome look in his eye.

           The last of his name.

           And yet he’s here –

           (not for ‘her’).

           Sansa will not turn away council for spite.  She will not let her people suffer to keep her burning resentment alive. She will not place pride above peace.

           “Please,” he tries again, blinking up at her with barely concealed tears, a face so instantly aged and worn she’s surprised she hadn’t seen it before. There’s a weariness to him that wasn’t there before.  “May I – may I be of any help?”

           “I won’t ever hurt you.”

           Sansa has taken to distrusting such promises in her experience, but there’s the same earnestness in his words now, and she understands what it means to want to believe in simple sincerity – to need it even, especially in an insincere world.

           Sansa finds herself nodding stiffly, just as the door behind her swings open. Lyanna Mormont stops in the threshold, eyeing the two of them in stilted concern.  “Your Grace?” she asks cautiously, hand clenching on the door handle.

           Sansa takes a deep breath, motioning toward a seat at the table.  “Lord Tyrion will be joining us for a time,” she tells her.

           Gratitude lights along the scar-addled lines of his face, a shaky smile pulling at his mouth.

           She does not ask after his queen.  She does not invite the dragon back to the table.

           And he does not urge her to such.

* * *

           Sansa consults with every healer and maester and wildling witch left in Winterfell. Nothing seems to affect Jon.  No collection of herbs seems to make the right salve, no pressure of practiced hands seems to ease the bruising or the wounds, no incantation seems to invoke the gods’ mercy enough to wake him.

           Sansa visits him daily, sleeping either at his side, or with Arya.  She begins her day with him.  She ends it with him, as well.

           She enters the familiar chamber now to find Tormund standing in the middle of the room, staring down at Jon, still as the morning light.

           “Tormund,” she greets, hesitant, making her way around the large man to stand at his side.

           He grunts his acknowledgement of her, never taking his eyes from Jon.

           She bundles her hands before her, fingers clenching and unclenching.  She eyes the clean bowl of water at the bedside table. “Did you come to help me wash him?” she asks tentatively, needing to broach the silence and yet not knowing how.

           He slides his intense gaze her way and she swallows back the words, unable to look away.  He heaves a heavy sigh, a hand wiping down his mouth and along his rough beard.  The motion is so reminiscent of Jon that she nearly takes a step back at the way it knocks the breath from her.

           “Let him rest, little wolf,” he tells her.

           She blinks at him, confusion marring her features.  She glances back to Jon’s unmoving form, before returning her attention to Tormund.  “I…”

           “He deserves the mercy of a clean blade.”

           The panic is instant – sharp at her throat.  Her hand comes up to grab at the hook-and-needle chain lining her collar.  “No,” she croaks out, breathless, staggering beneath the suggestion.

           Tormund turns fully to her, eyes the darkest blue she’s ever seen from him.  “He’s done his part.  He’s won the fight.  Now let him rest.”

           “And were you not there when he rose from death the first time?”

           Tormund grumbles, but doesn’t answer.  

           She takes a daring step closer to him.  “Were you not there?” she asks harshly.

           “Aye,” he grinds out.  “I was there.”

           Sansa stares at him balefully, her hand unclenching from her chain and sliding back to her side.  “You didn’t let him rest then either.”  It’s nearly an accusation.

           “Things were different.”

           “Yes, he wasn’t still alive.”

           Tormund levels her with a frustrated glare.

           “I can’t let him go.  I can’t.”  Her breath catches, her hands gripping at her skirts.  “Not like this.”

           Heaving a sigh, Tormund glances back to Jon’s still form along the bed.  “You know he never was the same – after that death business.”

           Sansa softens at the admission.  She feels the unexplainable urge to rest her hand upon his wide arm.  She resists it – just barely.

           “He was never the same,” he breathes out.

           “I know.”

           “No,” he says, near on a growl.  “You don’t.”

           Sansa blinks at him, mouth pursed into a tight line.  Something rattles in her chest she cannot recognize.  

           He turns back to her.  “You can’t know that.  No one can. He won’t talk about it – about wherever the fuck he went when those bastards closed his eyes for good.  So, no – you can’t know that.  You can’t know how he’s changed because you don’t know where he’s been.  None of us do.”

           She remembers Jon’s heavy breath pooling in the dip of her collar bone as he braces himself above her.  She remembers the quiver that racks through him when she settles her touch at his chest. She remembers the mournful way he mouths her name as her fingertips graze his scars.

           And she remembers how he takes her mouth with his before she can ever ask, his hand stilling her at the wrist.

           The thing is, she’s done quite the same when he’s tried exploring her own scars.

           Ramsay was a form of death himself, after all.  

           She’s never told Jon the depraved things Ramsay used to whisper in her ear when he took her like an animal, or how he brought her to begging by knife-point each night, or even how she miscarried during her escape to Castle Black – staining her saddle with blood, Brienne’s firm, mindful hands pulling her from the horse, cradling her in the snow as she cried out from the pain, a rending, terrible wail that shook the frost from the trees while Theon watched on with quiet, horror-filled eyes.

           (No, never that.)

           Something in her died on her way to him.

           Something in her has been dying ever since.

           Sansa gulps back the memory, frigid in her own skin, a winter’s gale passing through her like a howl.

           She told him to come back – demanded it even – because she has had enough of dying.

Because a collar is just another kind of violence.

Because she has finally learned to bare her teeth.

(Because wolves were never meant to be tamed – even by death.)

“Maybe it’s selfish,” she says, chapped lips parting on the words.  “But I won’t let him go,” she repeats.  “Because I think he deserves to be fought for.  I think he deserves it more than anyone.”

Tormund stares at her for a long time, just watching her, and she has to wonder what he sees.  He’d been there, after all, the day she’d arrived at Castle Black.  He’d been there – watched how she’d flown herself at Jon, arms going wide, sob raking from her instantly, trembling in his hold, face buried in his neck, rocking with him, back and forth and back and forth and –

He’d been there when she’d poured herself into him, never to return.

“Don’t take too long, little wolf,” he tells her finally, a gruff sigh leaving him as he turns for the door.  “The dragon queen won’t sit still forever.”

Sansa watches him go, catching sight of Arya in the threshold as Tormund drifts past.  They share a nod of familiarity, and Sansa is a sudden stranger, the show of acknowledgement a window into lives she’s closed herself off to – either willfully or not.

Have they shared a pint as easily as they’ve shared this nod?  Have they shared stories or laughs or hands?

She wonders, suddenly, at all the moments she’s missed in her single-minded rule, at this life her sister has built for herself, this life that Jon has built for himself, all the people and all the trials and all the joys that they’ve known.

She’s never shared her darkest parts, no, but she wants to now, suddenly.  She wants to know what it means to be seen – wholly and cleanly.

Arya stands before her.  Jon lays behind her.

And she wants them to know.  She wants them to know everything – all the horrid, rancid details, all the gruesome little workings of her insides – peeled back and emptied out.

(Perhaps this is what living means – perhaps this is what she demands of herself, as much as she demands it of Jon.)

She stares at Arya and her perpetual hold on Needle at her hip.  She stares at Tormund’s back as he stalks from the room.  She stares and stares and stares – vacant and longing.

(Tired of unkindness.)

Sansa makes her way from the room, silent and stiff. She finds herself at Bran’s door.

Before she can knock, the door swings wide – open for the first time since he’d retreated that bloody, unforgettable night, as though he’d been waiting for just this moment.

“Sansa,” he says, and he’s her little brother again – though his cheeks are gaunt and his eyes are hollow and there is nothing fond in his voice at all.

Her chest clenches from the harrowing sight of him. “Bran,” she exhales softly.

He sits staring up at her, hand still held at the door.  And then he wheels back, inviting her into the darkness of the room, shadows playing on them like taunts.

She thinks of their trek south.  She thinks of the summit.  She thinks of the beat of dragon’s wings shadowing their journey home. She thinks of the dragon queen, her white-sheened brilliance like a threat, even now, her mourning a fire-brewed thing.

She thinks of the start of it all.

Sansa takes a seat before Bran, the fire crackling at her side.  She licks her lips.  She finds her words.                                   (At the beginning.)

                                                 She will start at the beginning.

                                                                  Sansa clears her throat, eyes a dark demand, breath rising like wind-swept embers in her chest. {“Why did you bring her here?” –

* * *

Daenerys becomes a haunt – a silver, shadowy thing Sansa hardly ever sees outside the dim veil of sundown.  Sometimes, when she takes to the halls at night, she finds the dragon-less queen just lingering in a threshold, as though she has suddenly lurched to a stop, caught halfway between one place and the other, forgetting where it is she means to go.

The war has left widows of most of the North – wives who have outlasted their husbands.

But there is no such word for mothers who have outlasted their children.  

Sansa knocks on Daenerys’ door just the once – short and solid.

“Come in,” Daenerys beckons with a voice like ash.

Sansa enters her chamber smoothly, offering a polite curtsy and closing the door behind her.  She finds Daenerys lounging in a cushioned chair near the window, holding a near-empty wine glass loosely in her hand.  She sneers at Sansa’s entrance, a jarring expression for a face otherwise perfectly poised, a model of regal disinterest when she turns back to the window.  “And how is my nephew?” she asks coolly, fingers curling around her glass.  At Sansa’s silence she turns a single, raised brow her way, looking at her out of the corner of her eye.  “Come now, I know you’ve just come from his chambers.  You practically live there now, don’t you?”

Sansa smooths her hands over her skirts.  “He is much the same, Your Grace.  Nothing we’ve attempted has yet to wake him.”

Daenerys scoffs, taking a swig of wine.  “Such a doting sister.”  She seems to catch herself, lip curling as she turns fully to her. “Or should I say cousin now?”

“Jon is…dear to me, Your Grace, no matter the relation you attach to it.”

“Yes,” she says, emptying her wine glass.  “Dear enough to fuck, it seems.”

“Your Grace – ”

“Let’s not pretend, shall we?  It’s a rather tedious affair at this point.”  Daenerys arches a challenging brow at Sansa, tipping her empty glass back and forth.

“She burnt the Temple of the Dosh Khaleen when the khals refused her rule.  She burnt the slaver ships when they denied her their fleet. She burnt Euron Greyjoy when he rescinded his allegiance.”

Sansa blinks, remembering Bran’s words.

“She destroys what she cannot have.  House words have never rung so true.  She will take what is hers, with fire and blood.  Or fire and blood will take it instead.”

Sansa draws in a deep, steadying breath, lowering herself to the seat across from Daenerys.  Her hands fold together over her lap with certainty.

Meereen will be the last city she lays ruin to.

           Sansa catches sight of the flagon of wine on the side table.

           (The last, she vows.)

           Sansa grabs the flagon, offering it to Daenerys.

           After a moment of contemplation, Daenerys extends her hand with the wine glass expectantly.  Sansa begins to pour as she speaks, “If we’re not pretending anymore then I gather it’s safe to say you’re not particularly interested in Jon waking.”

           Daenerys throws her head back with a stunted laugh and Sansa stops pouring, replacing the flagon, her hands shifting seamlessly back to her lap.  Daenerys bites off an indignant scoff when she looks back to Sansa, eyes flashing.  “You’re much too smart to think I’d ever cross an ocean with an army such as mine only to sit second seat at the table.”

           Sansa doesn’t answer her, but she doesn’t need to.

           Daenerys’ eyes harden on her, taking a sip of wine like a threat, never blinking from her when she swallows.  “I did offer him an alternative.  He refused.”

           “It’s only an alternative when it’s a choice, not a threat.”

           Daenerys purses her lips, the fingers of her free hand thrumming along the armrest.  “I didn’t relish the idea of harming my own blood, no, but I’d have done it if it meant stability for the throne.”

           “I believe that.”

           Daenerys eyes her critically, shifting in her seat.  “And you understand why I must.”  A long sip of wine.  A thrum of silence between them.

           It is said like a statement, but even Sansa hears the question in it.  She offers a perfunctory smile.  “I understand why you believe you must.”

           Daenerys’ cheeks tinge a harsh pink, her nostrils flaring.  “It is not belief.  It is fact.”  She takes a large gulp of wine.

           “You’ll pardon me, Your Grace, if I hold such a fact up to speculation.  You did, after all, base your entire campaign for the throne on the misguided ‘fact’ that you were the last – and rightful – Targaryen.”  Sansa cocks her head thoughtfully, reclining in her chair.  “We’ve since seen the truth of that,” she finishes calmly, no hint of smugness to the words, though the boldness of such a sentiment is inherently unspoken.

           Daenerys narrows her eyes, her jaw locking, a cold, even calm blanketing over her. And this is it.  This is the dragon queen in all her bereaved splendor. This is grief made sharp – made fire-licked.  “You would do well to hold that tongue, my lady, before I have it cut out.”  It’s such a soft-spoken threat, her voice lilting as though it is a secret shared, a hidden joy.  Daenerys’ lips curl with her dark smile, stained with wine.

           Sansa glances to the slowly emptying glass in her hand.  

           “So eager to defy me,” Daenerys muses, all hint of grief gone.  “Treason is an easy crime for you, isn’t it?”  She is fire again – the small, blue flame at its origin.  A quiet destruction.  She looks off into the corner of the room, taking a drawn-out sip of wine, a needful distraction.  A sigh leaves her when she finally lowers her glass – a sound not unlike the exhaustion of bruised hearts.

           Sansa thinks of Jorah Mormont then.  The quiet bear at Daenerys’ back, and the way she always inclined her head at his words, the way her smile seemed a tender, girlish thing in his presence, the way her hand reached for him in the end, with desperation and yearning and loneliness.

           So much loneliness it was painful for Sansa to watch.

           “You love him so?  That you would risk such treason to speak to me thus?  That you would give your life for his claim?”  Her eyes slip back to Sansa like a demand.

           “For his claim?  No.” Sansa shakes her head softly, a sad sort of smile tugging at her lips, and she knows now that there is no keeping it any longer.  There is no way to stop it spilling from her, in waves and waves and earnest, fierce waves. “But for him?”

           There is no keeping this.

           She imagines Daenerys sees the truth of it in her face, because she is nodding slightly, jaw quivering, a heavy breath drawn through her lungs.  “And you think I haven’t loved like that myself?” Her eyes are wet suddenly – jarringly.

           If Daenerys is trying to hide the regret, she’s doing a poor job of it. And for a moment, Sansa wonders what they might have been in another life.  In another time.

           (When they’d not crawled over leagues and leagues of heartache too ripe to ever call it finished –

           Leagues and leagues of it and –

           The road is too long.  It winds too sharp.  And Sansa cannot see the end from her vantage point, cannot calculate the curve.  She discerns it through faith.  She travels blind, but for her hand in Jon’s.)

           What they might have been – Sansa wonders – in another life.

           But they have only this life.

           And she will not waste it.

           “I think you’ve loved,” she answers her in a whisper, and it’s not a truth that’s hard to see.  

           Daenerys does not take her eyes from her, hand tightening over her forgotten wine glass.  She is a haunt, yes – still a visage of mourning – but fire does not die so easy.

           (Sansa reminds herself that fire sows no seeds.)

The words lodge in Sansa’s throat, scraping their way out – a wreckage of sorrow lighting her tongue.  “I just don’t think you’ve ever loved anything so well as your throne – so well as yourself.”

Daenerys looks upon her with barely held contempt, her chin tilting high, eyes blinking back the wetness.  “You’re treading on thin ice, Lady Sansa,” she warns.

           “But it is my ice, and I will tread it how I will.”  

           Her North.  Her home.  Her Jon.

           (Even if she burns for it – this she will not surrender.)

           Daenerys takes a last, violent swig of wine, emptying her glass and nearly slamming it on the side table as she stands.  “You would be dead without me,” she hisses, a harrowing glint of shadow lighting her pale features.  It is almost a plea.

           Sansa only shakes her head, her eyes sharp under the firelight, hands still held primly in her lap.  “I would be dead without a great number of people – mainly Jon.  And Arya, and Bran, and Theon.  But not you.”

Daenerys blinks wildly at her, mouth parting with no words to follow.

Sansa stands as well, her height lending an air of assurance to the words.  “We would be dead without your dragons, Your Grace, but hardly without you,” she corrects, something of compassion seeping into her tone, remembering –

           There is no word for mothers who outlast their children.

           Yes, she has loved.  But so have they all.

           “I’m sorry,” Sansa says.

           (Daenerys will never know what for.)

           A scoff leaves the queen’s lips.  “Sorry?”  She’s practically shaking with the indignation.  “Sorry?”  Her face twists into a mask of disdain.  “You will be,” she promises, voice a tight whisper.  “You will all be sorry.”

           Sansa does not wilt in the face of her wrath.  She simple waits.  She simply watches.  

           “Father will know if you do.”

           “My armies will sweep through this land and lay waste to all who defy me.  I will retake that which is mine by right, and you will learn to properly cower before your queen,” she sneers, a shadow-crept wrath etching over her face.  “You think you have won, because my dragons are dead.  Because my children are dead.  But I was a queen before I was ever a mother, and a queen I will stay. They heralded my name like prophecy, they knelt in reverence, they bled for me, because I demanded it, and because they knew it was right.  Westeros will tremble before me, dragons or not, because I am the last true Targaryen.  I am the fire, and I am the blood.  And you will know my wrath.  You will know that I carry the greatness of Old Valyria in my veins.  You will know – ”

           Daenerys chokes on her own vehemence, a cloud of blood spraying suddenly from her lips as she jolts to stillness, eyes wide.

           (Words were not the only poison Baelish taught her.)

           Sansa tucks her hand back into the folds of her dress, the powdered drug between her fingertips a weight she has learned years ago.

           Daenerys snaps wild eyes to her emptied wine glass in recognition, lips flecked with blood.  She stumbles, blinking furiously, hands grasping for air she hasn’t the lungs for.

           Sansa does not turn away, even when the dragon queen collapses to the ground, gripping Sansa’s skirts between white knuckles, choking on her own blood.

           “I would give my life for his, yes,” Sansa offers demurely, lowering herself to the floor, a tender hand on the dragon queen’s elbow just before she starts seizing.  “But first, I would give yours.”

           It’s an ugly, inglorious death that takes her – the blood seeping from her mouth like a wound, fingers gnarled into trembling, grasping claws, eyes red-rimmed and hateful when she finally gasps her last – small and infirm and less than a queen.

           It is not a dragon’s death.

           Daenerys’ eyes slip shut, and instantly – like a dark, thieving mirror – with Ghost’s distant howl breaking against the night, somewhere across the castle –

           Jon finally wakes.

* * *

           {“There is a price.  Only death pays for life.”

It is an echo of years past.  An echo that rings unfamiliar to Sansa’s ears, but in the dark hour, in the hollow of night, it comes to her –

           “Some say the witch’s magic still lingers inside me.”

           Sansa’s eyes go wide, her mouth parting.  Bran offers what might have passed for a smile once on her lost brother’s face.

           “Because she is needed.”

           There is an old sort of magic to sacrifice, after all – a violence done most kindly.

           And fire sows no seeds.

           So Sansa will sow her own.}